If you visit Venice and take a few tours and/or speak to locals you'll hear a lot more about how important tourism is. But there is a lot of thought put on the 'kind' of tourism they want and get.
Most probably the locals that remained are tied in to the business industry, and, as such, you'd expect that sort of discourse coming from them. But the majority that left (~175k down to ~50k, as a fellow HN-er said above) probably had a different opinion about that.
