When people think of the term “overtourism,” they often associate it with destinations like Mallorca, Venice, or Barcelona, where residents of these major tourist hubs have taken to the streets to protest against tourists, claiming they are encroaching on their living space.
However, Barcelona does not even make it into the top 18 cities on the European list compiled by the portal “Holidu” based on the number of visitors per capita. According to Deutsche Welle, Dubrovnik ranks first on this list with 27 visitors per capita. It is followed by Rhodes in Greece with 26, and Venice comes in third with 21 tourists per capita.
Paris, with seven visitors per capita, ranks 12th on the list. Barcelona, a city where protesters have used water guns to drive away tourists, is only in 20th place, while Berlin, whose residents have long complained that they “can’t breathe” because of tourists coming to party, is in 33rd place with just two visitors per capita.
In terms of total tourist numbers for 2023, according to data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Croatia, with 16.9 million visitors, is far behind France, which holds the top spot with 100 million international tourist arrivals, followed by Spain with 85.2 million.
However, in the list of countries with the highest number of tourists per capita, Croatia leads with 4.3 visitors per capita, followed by Montenegro with 4 tourists per capita. Austria follows with 3.4, and Greece with 3.1.
