November 9, 2026, 10:00 am | Read time: 5 minutes
Where will it be particularly crowded again this summer? New figures from the European Commission provide a clue. They have collected data on tourist overnight stays from recent years, compared them to population numbers, and identified the most popular and overcrowded travel destinations on the continent. Here are the results.
Overtourism has been a familiar term for some time, and there is growing interest in alternative travel destinations. These are places where not everyone goes on vacation, where you can be alone with yourself, and where you don’t have to queue for shady spots or fight for places on the beach. Places where you can relax and truly enjoy a vacation. Zakynthos is not one of these places. Instead, the small Greek island has been infamously named the most overcrowded vacation spot in Europe. At the same time, it is not the island that attracts the most visitors.
Where do the numbers come from?
The European Commission has collected various tourism data in its EU Tourism Dashboard, including the so-called tourism intensity. This refers to the number of tourist overnight stays compared to the population. According to the EU Commission, the data is “an indicator of economic dependence on tourism,” and very high values can also “indicate overtourism, resource scarcity, and vulnerability to demand shocks.”
The seasonality of destinations was also determined, meaning how strong the demand is at certain times of the year. High seasonality can negatively impact a destination, as “an unbalanced ratio of pressure and economic activity” arises, making the destination more vulnerable to demand shocks, according to the EU Tourism Dashboard. If tourism is particularly concentrated at certain times of the year instead of remaining stable year-round, it can “negatively affect the socio-economic resilience of tourism.”
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The recorded overnight numbers include tourist stays in hotels and similar establishments, at campsites and caravan parks, as well as in other vacation accommodations.
Zakynthos is the most overcrowded vacation spot in Europe
The British consumer organization Which? analyzed the EU Commission’s data and found that the Greek island of Zakynthos is the most overcrowded of all European travel destinations. According to the EU Commission, 5.93 million overnight guests visited the small island in western Greece in 2023, which has a population of just about 40,000. As a map from the EU Commission shows, there were 145.24 overnight guests per resident in the year before last. The seasonality value in Zakynthos and the Ionian Islands is also high at 71.08 percent. In Greece overall, it is 56.86 percent.
According to the Which analysis, the second most overcrowded vacation spot in Europe is Istria in Croatia, which recorded around 28.1 million overnight guests in 2023. In the county on the peninsula in western Croatia, there were 142.1 overnight guests per resident, according to the European Commission (the numbers from Which? differ slightly).
In addition to these, there are many other destinations that show a rather darker brown color, indicating high intensity. These include North Friesland and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern/Rügen in Germany, destinations in Austria such as East Tyrol and Innsbruck, other regions in Greece and Croatia, the Portuguese Algarve, various parts of Spain, Italy, and France, as well as Iceland and Lapland in Finland.
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These were the most popular vacation destinations in Europe in 2023
In addition to the places struggling the most with overtourism, the EU Commission’s figures also show which vacation spots in Europe were the most popular in 2023, measured by the number of tourist overnight stays. The leader here is the Germans’ favorite island, Mallorca, which recorded 51.19 million tourist overnight stays in 2023 alone. On the Balearic Island, the tourism intensity value is also high, with 54.15 overnight stays per resident. TRAVELBOOK also regularly reports on Mallorca’s problems with tourist crowds. In a pure numbers comparison, however, the situation is more critical for Mallorca’s neighboring islands Ibiza and Formentera (counted together on the map) and Menorca. There, 65.63 and 63.73 tourist overnight stays per resident were recorded, respectively.
The second most popular vacation destination is the French capital, Paris, which counted 43.92 million overnight stays in 2023. Rome is the third most popular destination with 41.14 million overnight stays. Several other Italian and Spanish city destinations recorded between 30 and 40 million tourist overnight stays in the year. These include Barcelona, Venice, Tenerife, and Madrid. Berlin reached 29.38 million in the same year.
These destinations are gaining popularity
In its communication on the imbalance of European tourism, the EU Commission also highlights that the cities of Porto and Athens are becoming increasingly popular with tourists. In both, overnight numbers have risen by 60 percent since 2019. Copenhagen in Denmark, Cork in Ireland, and the Dutch province of North Limburg have also gained popularity. All three doubled their number of tourist overnight stays during the study period. Barcelona, which is already overcrowded, also saw an increase: The dashboard shows a 16 percent rise.
According to the European Commission, a trend is very clear from the numbers: Almost 63 percent of all overnight stays in 2023 were in popular coastal or city destinations. These account for just 33 percent of the total area of the European Union.