The South Aegean has emerged as the most saturated tourist destination in Europe in a study presented by the German Federal Statistical Office Destatis.
The study, which is based on Eurostat data from 2023, shows that in this region, which includes flagships of Greek tourism such as Santorini, Mykonos, and Rhodes, an average of 117 tourist nights is recorded per inhabitant.
It is noted that the number of nights per inhabitant is a widespread indicator of the tourist density of a region.
The Ionian Islands follow immediately after in the ranking, where the number of tourist nights amounts to 98 per inhabitant. In addition, Crete emerges as the 6th most “saturated” tourist destination in the country, with the number of tourist overnight stays reaching 55 per inhabitant.
In third place is the Italian region of Bolzano-South Tyrol (68), in fourth the Croatian Adriatic coast (67), and in fifth the Balearic Islands (57).
In absolute numbers, however, the Canary Islands emerge as the most sought-after destination in the EU. The Spanish islands are ranked 10th in terms of tourist density for 2023, with 43 overnight stays per inhabitant. Since 2023, 95.6 million have been recorded in the destination. visitor nights on average, around 262,000 people spent the night each day on one of the Canary Islands in 2023. This is followed by the Croatian Adriatic coast with 87.3 million nights, Catalonia with 85.6 million nights, Île-de-France and the greater Paris region with 85.2 million nights, and Andalusia with 73.9 million nights. Upper Bavaria, including Munich, Germany’s most popular tourist region, ranks 14th in the EU with 41.6 million nights.
The lowest concentration of tourism in 2023 is recorded in the Polish regions of Mazovia – excluding Warsaw – and Opole, as well as in Southern Romania Mutenia – excluding Bucharest – and southeastern Romania. In these regions, only 1 overnight stay per inhabitant was recorded.
Regarding the contribution of the hospitality sector to the national economies of European countries, the research showed that in Greece, the sector represented the largest share of Gross Added Value in 2023 in the EU (7.1%). It is followed by Spain (6.7%), Croatia (6.4%), Portugal (6.1%), Italy (4.2%), Austria (3.9%), and the Netherlands (2%).
Source: tornosnews.gr