Greece at the Top: Europe's Most Saturated Tourist Regions
Croatia's Adriatic coast ranks a high fourth, with Eurostat data showing how much tourists outnumber the local population.
Croatia's Adriatic coast ranks a high fourth, with Eurostat data showing how much tourists outnumber the local population.
New data from Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office, reveals which European regions saw the most overnight stays per local resident in 2024. The analysis was conducted by Greek Reporter and carried by Euronews, with results showing Greece's clear dominance, as well as a high ranking for Croatia's Adriatic coast.
The most saturated tourist region in the entire European Union is Greece's Southern Aegean, which includes the popular islands of Santorini, Rhodes, and Kos. According to the data, tourists there logged 127.2 overnight stays per resident in 2024. The region recorded over 41.5 million overnight stays and has roughly 326,000 residents, representing the largest gap between visitor numbers and the local population in the entire EU.
Second place went to the Ionian Islands, also in Greece, which include Corfu and Zakynthos. There, 102.6 overnight stays per resident were recorded, with 20.5 million total overnight stays and a population of about 200,000. No other region in the analysis came close to these figures.
Italy's Bolzano province, known as the gateway to the Dolomites in the Italian Alps, took third place with 68.9 overnight stays per resident. Right behind it is Croatia's Adriatic coast, home to popular Dubrovnik and Split, with 67.5 overnight stays per resident, making it the fourth most burdened region in the EU.
Fifth place went to Spain's Balearic Islands, which include Ibiza and Mallorca, with 60 overnight stays per resident. In sixth place, Greece appears again, specifically Crete, with 55.6 overnight stays per resident.
Interestingly, most regions in the European Union recorded fewer than 15 overnight stays per resident. Even Greece's third region, the Northern Aegean, had only 14.9 overnight stays per resident, though that still earned it 24th place on the saturation scale.
At the very bottom of the list is Mayotte, a French island in the Indian Ocean that is, somewhat surprisingly, a territory of the European Union. There, only 0.5 overnight stays per resident were recorded, narrowly beating Poland's Mazowieckie region, which surrounds Warsaw and logs 0.7 overnight stays per resident.
