Croatia and Montenegro hold the record for the number of tourists

2024-08-30 10:22:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

When it comes to the term "overtourisam", most people first think of Majorca, Venice or Barcelona. In Spain, citizens in the main tourist centers have even recently taken to the streets and protested against the large number of tourists - sometimes even using unacceptable means. They have objected to the large number of tourists, with the explanation that they are endangering their lives and well-being there, because they are unable to pay the high costs of apartments or food.

Dubrovnik at the top

At the same time, Barcelona is not even among the first 18 cities in the European list of the "Holiday" portal in terms of the number of visitors per capita. The first in this list is Dubrovnik with 27 visitors per capita living there. While in second place is Greek Rhodes with 26, and in third place comes Venice with 21 tourists per capita, although Venice is considered one of the most visited places in the world.With seven visitors per capita, Paris is only in 12th place on this list. Barcelona, ????the city where protesters sometimes chase tourists with water guns, is in 20th place, so far from the most visited places.

Berlin, whose citizens have complained for years that they "can't breathe" from holidaymakers, ranks 33rd with just two visitors per capita in a city of about 3.6 million inhabitants.

But if only the number of inns in a country is taken into account against the number of the population, then the tourist centers in the Aegean Sea, above all the island of Santorini in Greece, are listed in the first places.

Croatia and Montenegro lead

In terms of the number of tourists for 2023, according to the United Nations Office for Tourism, with 16.9 million, Croatia is by far in first place. France with its 100 million visitors (international tourist arrivals) is in first place, ahead of Spain with 85.2 million, the USA with 66.5 million and Italy with 57.2 million. But compared to the ratio of tourists per capita of population in these countries they are far from Croatia.

Croatia tops the list of countries with the highest number of tourists per capita, with 4.3 visitors per capita. Montenegro is in second place with approximately the same figures. It is followed by Austria with 3.4 and Greece with 3.1 tourists per capita. High numbers are noted in those tourist destinations where relatively few local residents live, which can also be said for Croatia which has only about 3.8 million inhabitants, but also for Montenegro with only about 600 thousand inhabitants. There are also city-states such as Monaco, Andorra or the Vatican where the figures are high.

In countries like Spain with about 48 million inhabitants, 1.8 tourists come per inhabitant. In Italy, the ratio is 1:1, while Germany, where about 83 million people live, does not even have half the number of tourists per capita. Albania is not mentioned in these analyzes and assessments. /DW