Europe’s top 20 tourist destinations – Spain dominates the top ten

Spain’s popular tourist destinations, including the Canary and Balearic Islands, helped the country dominate the most visited hotspots last year.

In total, Spain’s Canary and Balearic Islands top the list of most visited EU regions, with 83.2 and 61.7 million nights spent by foreign tourists in 2023.

Data compiled by Eurostat showed Majorca storming ahead in the league table, measuring the number of nights spent by foreign tourists. Over 47 million nights are spent by foreign tourists in the largest of the Balearic islands.

Majorca is known for its beach resorts and tranquil waters. More than 2.3 million British tourists flock there every year.

Meanwhile, Tenerife was runner-up but lagged significantly behind Mallorca. Foreign tourists spent almost 30 million nights in the largest Canary Islands in 2023.

Barcelona tied with Tenerife with 29.67 million nights spent in the Calatan city.

Venice, Paris, and Rome were among the top six.

The top ten also featured Croatia‘s Istrian Penisula (26 million), Italy’s Bolzano (25 million) – popular for hikers venturing into the Dolomite mountains – and Greece‘s Karpathos and Laymnos (24 million).

Gran Canaria, on the Canary Islands, rounded off the top ten, with foreign tourists spending 22 million nights there.

The rest of the top twenty included Malaga, Amsterdam, Alicante, Split, Lanzarote, Madrid, Lisbon, Girona, Verona, and Pinzgau-Pongau.

The dominance of Spain comes as around 8,000 people took part in protests against overtourism across the Canary Islands over the weekend.

Residents complained that they were being priced out of the housing market. Activists also claimed that the arrival of millions of visitors yearly depletes limited natural resources like water and damages the environment.

Meanwhile, the Greek island of Zakynthos and Croatia’s Istrian peninsula have the highest number of arrivals compared to the number of residents.

Zakynthos topped the overcrowded charts with 149,887 nights spent by foreign tourists per thousand residents, while the Croatian destination experienced 133,447 nights by foreign tourists per thousand residents.

Among all EU countries, Greece suffered the highest pressure from tourism, with six out of ten locations on the list of most overcrowded. These included the Kalymnos, Karpathos, Cyclades, Corfu, and the Chalkidiki Peninsula.

This week, workers in the Greek tourism industry set out plans for protests as they struggle under the strain of visitors, often working long hours for low wages.