The unexpected leader topped the rating of the most overpopulated cities in Europe with tourists. Venice and Barcelona, which suffer from over-tourism, have given way to the Croatian resort of Dubrovnik – which still cannot cope with the fame that the TV series “Game of Thrones” brought to its ancient citadel. At least that’s what the ranking presented by Holidu, a holiday home rental agency, in its report on the “tourist-overloaded” cities of Europe.
However, the report looked at data from a record 2019, a record year for tourism, and the most recent pre-pandemic. Experts reviewed annual data on tourism and calculated the number of tourists among residents. As a result, one resident of Dubrovnik accounts for 36 tourists. The number is not surprising, Dubrovnik itself is a relatively small city with a population of just over 41,000 people, and in 2019 it welcomed almost 1.5 million tourists.
“Excessive tourism has caused many problems in the Croatian city: from traffic jams to infrastructure damage and a sharp increase in prices, as well as a decrease in the quality of life of residents,” the experts added.
At the same time, the city has not yet tried to introduce harsh fines and restrictions — although some Croatian resorts are already planning to beat ill-mannered tourists in the wallet. The city maintains some restrictions for daytime visits by tourists, and the city authorities release funny cartoons with tips on how not to be an “annoying tourist”.
By the way, the second place in this rating is quite close. Not only Venice was there, but also Bruges in Belgium and Rhodes in Greece. Each of them counts 21 tourists per local resident — or rather, counted in 2019. And Barcelona, which is a fairly large metropolis, barely entered the top twenty – it has only 5 tourists per resident.