Surprising ranking These are the countries with a secret tourist record
View of the center of Bad Gastein in the Austrian province of Salzburg. The center, which lies on steep slopes around a waterfall, has been renovated and rebuilt in recent years. The town, where emperors once took the waters and celebrities frequented, is trying to return to its 19th century glory days.
Image: dpa
"Tourists go home" or "Tourism go home" is written on a wall in Barcelona (August 2024).
Image: dpa
A tourist magnet: idyllic Hallstatt on Lake Hallstatt. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
Picture-book city with river and fortress: Salzburg. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
Eye-catcher in Vienna: Schönbrunn Palace. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
Croatia is a country with many tourists, not least because of the picturesque Dubrovnik. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
View of the center of Bad Gastein in the Austrian province of Salzburg. The center, which lies on steep slopes around a waterfall, has been renovated and rebuilt in recent years. The town, where emperors once took the waters and celebrities frequented, is trying to return to its 19th century glory days.
Image: dpa
"Tourists go home" or "Tourism go home" is written on a wall in Barcelona (August 2024).
Image: dpa
A tourist magnet: idyllic Hallstatt on Lake Hallstatt. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
Picture-book city with river and fortress: Salzburg. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
Eye-catcher in Vienna: Schönbrunn Palace. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
Croatia is a country with many tourists, not least because of the picturesque Dubrovnik. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
"Tourists go home": Anti-holidaymaker demonstrations cause a stir in Spain. Without wanting to minimize the problems there: Other vacation destinations have the most tourists per capita.
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- The vacation accommodation portal "Holidu" compared the number of arriving tourists with the number of residents.
- The Alpine republic of Austria tops the list of the most popular tourist countries in the world.
- "The most crowded city in Europe" in 2023 was Dubrovnik with 27 tourists per capita.
Mallorca, Málaga, Marbella, Maspalomas - Spain is particularly popular with tourists. When it comes to "overtourism", many also think of Barcelona, Seville and Ibiza. When it comes to other popular vacation destinations, cities such as Venice, Rome, Amsterdam, Athens, Prague, London or islands such as Crete, Bali and Phuket come to mind.
In Spain, there have been sensational protests against mass tourism in recent weeks. Many locals are outraged by higher housing costs, environmental pollution, traffic jams and general overcrowding due to the increasing number of visitors. Water shortages and the fact that the health sector and waste collection are overloaded are also annoying.
Spain does not have the most tourists per capita
However, among the most visited countries in the world, Spain does not have the most tourists per capita. Another country has the highest tourist rate.
At the top of the list of the world's most popular tourist countries, the Alpine republic of Austria takes first place when the number of visitors is divided by the number of inhabitants to determine the ratio of locals to holidaymakers. Croatia comes further down the list, but more on that later.
Figures from UN Tourism (the World Tourism Organization) show that France remains the most popular destination for foreign tourists in 2023 - with 100 million arrivals ("international tourist arrivals"). This is probably mainly due to Paris, the city of love, which is on the to-do list of many people around the world.
Spain (85.2 million), the USA (66.5 million), Italy (57.2 million) and Turkey (55.2 million) follow in the top ten of the Madrid-based United Nations specialized agency (former name: UNWTO).
Austria in 1st place
Somewhat further behind are Germany with 34.8 million and Austria with almost 31 million. So far, so good - and seemingly all clear.
However, Austria is catapulted to first place among the top countries if you divide its 30.9 million guests by its 9.2 million inhabitants.
The rate is then 3.4 tourists per local resident in the leiwanden (high German: fallen) land of Sisi and skiing, Mozart and pastries, Bad Ischl and Ischgl, Wolfgangsee and Wörthersee, Sachertorte and Wiener Schnitzel.
Greece has 3.1 tourists (a similar figure for the United Arab Emirates). In Spain, there are 1.8 tourists per inhabitant, in France 1.5. In Bella Italia, the ratio of tourists to inhabitants is practically 1:1.
"Be more proud of our attractiveness as a vacation destination"
The Germans are primarily responsible for Austria's high rate. More than 57 million overnight stays by guests from Germany were registered in Austria in 2023, according to the tourism organization "Österreich Werbung" (ÖW). The top destination in Austria in both summer and winter is the capital Vienna.
"We Austrians can be more proud of our diversity and our attractiveness as a vacation destination," says ÖW spokeswoman Tanja Gruber in Vienna. People are often still practising (false) modesty, she says.
"If you ask travelers after their vacation what they remember about Austria, they describe this special feeling," says Gruber. "The serenity, lightness and also the enjoyment and often also the grant that characterizes a few - very popular - regions of Austria."
High tourist rates can also be seen in some countries with comparatively few inhabitants, such as Malta and Cyprus (and even more so in dwarf states such as Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein and the Vatican).
Croatia is also very conspicuous: although it is more than a dozen places behind Austria in terms of the total number of visitors, it actually has 4.3 tourists per capita (UN Tourism puts the total number of visitors for 2023 at 16.9 million with a population of 3.9 million).
It is therefore not surprising that a destination in Croatia is at the top of a ranking that indicates the highest number of tourists per inhabitant for European cities.
Which European city is the most flooded with tourists
The vacation accommodation portal "Holidu" compared the number of arriving tourists with the number of inhabitants. "The most crowded city in Europe" in 2023 was Dubrovnik with 27 tourists per capita.
It was followed by Rhodes (26), Venice (21), Heraklion (18) and Florence (14). Reykjavik and Amsterdam each had 12 tourists per inhabitant, Lisbon and Porto 11 each, Dublin and Athens 9 each and Paris, Nice and Bruges 7 each.
When it comes to the number of overnight stays rather than the number of visitors, the ratio of locals to tourists in the South Aegean in Greece is particularly unbalanced in an EU comparison, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office.
Two years ago, there were an average of 110 overnight stays per inhabitant in the region with islands such as Santorini and Mykonos, according to Destatis.
Only a few Swiss locations affected by overtourism
There is no "overtourism" in Switzerland, explained Switzerland Tourism (ST) a few weeks ago on the basis of a survey conducted in April and May. Only a minority of 5 percent of respondents were concerned about tourism.
And when problems associated with tourism are perceived, inflation, pollution and littering as well as traffic problems come out on top. This is followed by the increasing scarcity of living space and damage to nature and the environment.
Instead of "overtourism", the association speaks of "selective local and temporal bottlenecks". In tourist centers in particular, the respondents also noted "a certain disrespect on the part of tourists" - be it towards the respondents themselves, their families or their own country and the environment.
Lauterbrunnen recently made the headlines as a prominent example. The community of 2,300 reacted to the influx of tourists with signs calling for more consideration.
dpa
