From Dubrovnik, Croatia, to Venice, Italy, these are the European destinations most overloaded with tourists

Banje beach, Dubrovnik in Croatia Image: Shutterstock

France and Spain may be the most popular European destinations, but they are not necessarily the most overcrowded. In fact, Dubrovnik and Crete are more affected by this kind of tourist saturation.

Logically, it's international traveler arrivals that are counted to designate a country's ranking on the tourism leaderboard. So, if France is presented as the world's leading tourist destination, it's because 100 million visitors came to discover the country in 2023. So does that mean that France is saturated with tourists? It all depends on the destination, but on the whole, it would be wrong to say so. The influx of tourists is more visible when considering the visitor population in relation to the local population. That's the aim of research carried out by the vacation rental booking website, Holidu. It looked at the number of tourists in 2023 for each city on The Savvy Backpacker and Air Mundo’s most visited cities lists, and gathered data from Euromonitor International’s “Top 100 City Destinations Index 2023.”

The superb medieval city of Dubrovnik, in Croatia, stands out as being saturated with tourists, with 27 visitors per inhabitant. Popular with fans of the “Game of Thrones” TV show, the old town is quickly choked by curious visitors, especially since its surface area is no larger than 135 km2. In summer 2023, the supposed ban on wheeled suitcases caused quite a stir. Their passage over the cobblestones of the beautiful Croatian destination could logically cause a lot of noise. However, Dubrovnik's mayor has since reassured tourists that there will be no such penalties.

While a Deloitte/Google study has predicted that Spain will become the world's top destination by 2040, pushing France into second place, Europe's most popular summer destinations don't necessarily appear at the top of this Holidu ranking. In second place is Rhodes (Greece), where there are 26 tourists for every inhabitant. Crete is also experiencing a heavy tourist influx, with its capital Heraklion in fourth place (18 tourists per inhabitant). Italy is another stifled region, notably in Venice (21 tourists per inhabitant) and Florence (13 tourists per inhabitant).