EUROPE: From boom to burden – How overtourism hit European cities

4.8 million people visited the Sagrada Família in Barcelona last year – Image: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/picture alliance

Many destinations in Europe are groaning under the strain of vacationers. So what turns certain places into tourist magnets? It isn’t just the famous landmarks.

Never before have so many people traveled worldwide. According to the UN World Tourism Organization’s World Tourism Barometer, an estimated 1.52 billion international tourists were recorded globally in 2025 — nearly 60 million more than in 2024. Europe remained the world’s most popular destination region, welcoming about 793 million international visitors.

Faced with this tourism boom, a growing number of destinations are reaching their limits, prompting regional authorities to try to reduce the negative effects that large visitor numbers can have. Paris and Barcelona — two of the world’s most visited cities — are among them. Anti-tourism protests regularly take place across Spain, with Barcelona as the most contested city. In Barcelona, politicians recently decided to double the nightly tourist tax, while Paris raised its own sharply in 2024. Rome has taken a different approach: sightseers must now pay an entrance fee to see the famous Trevi Fountain. Venice, meanwhile, introduced a visitor fee for last-minute day-trippers in the summer of 2024.

“It’s important to distinguish between sightseeing and beach trips or vacations focused on recreation,” said Hasso Spode, a historian and director of the Tourism Archive at the Technical University of Berlin, who has been researching tourism for decades. In cities such as Paris, Barcelona, Rome and Venice, iconic landmarks play a central role in drawing visitors. After all, sights like the Eiffel Tower, the Sagrada Família and the Colosseum sit high on many people’s bucket lists. In recent years, travel has also become more affordable — thanks in part to budget airlines and the rise of short-term rentals — making it easier for a broader public to realize long-held travel dreams.

Paris is one of the most visited cities in the world – Image: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/picture alliance

Spode said most tourists heading to Europe still preferred the sun and sand. Indeed, according to a study published by the German Federal Statistical Office last year, tourism activity in Europe is highest on the Mediterranean coast. The ranking compares the number of overnight stays to the number of inhabitants in a given location.

From fishing village to resort

Apart from reliably good weather and pleasant swimming conditions, a coastal destination doesn’t necessarily need to have anything special to attract the crowds, Spode said. He points out the example of the resort town of Lloret de Mar on Spain’s Costa Brava. This resort area came into being when strategists and investors decided to develop the sleepy fishing village into a tourism hotspot, replacing historic buildings with high-rises. The target audience was initially affluent and later, party-loving youngsters. Today, dozens of hotels line the artificially created beach. “This could easily have been done 100 kilometers (62 miles) further away,” says Spode, emphasizing that it was a development-related decision more than anything tied to the location’s culture or history.

But, Spode said, the most important condition for the development of a mass tourism destination is accessibility. When tourism in the modern sense first emerged in 19th-century Britain, that primarily meant railways. At the time, the royal family favored the seaside resort of Brighton, about 85 kilometers (52 miles) south of London. For ordinary Britons, however, the coast was largely out of reach. The aristocracy vacationed among themselves — until 1841, when a railway line connected London to the seaside. Almost overnight, Brighton turned into a tourism hotspot. “The royals fled, and today it’s like Ballermann in El Arenal,” says Spode, referring to the party district on the Spanish island of Mallorca known for its crowds of drunken tourists.

Tourists stand outside the entrance of the Mallorca airport, one of the busiest in Spain – Image: Schoening/picture alliance

One of Europe’s most accessible destinations

On the Balearic island of Mallorca, the long stretch of beach near the capital, Palma — the Playa de Palma, home to the infamous Ballermann party zone — is one of the clearest European examples of a destination that has fallen victim to overtourism. Accessibility played a decisive role in the tourism boom that began in the 1960s. Jet aircraft replaced propeller planes, travel to Mallorca became cheaper, package holidays emerged, and the airport was steadily expanded, Spode explains. Today, around 34 million passengers pass through the airport each year, making Mallorca one of Europe’s most easily accessible destinations by air. Added to this is the steadily growing cruise industry, which, as in many other places, continues to drive up visitor numbers.

In recent years, platforms like Instagram and TikTok have also brought more tourists to particular destinations — such as the famous Greek island of Santorini — often contributing significantly to overtourism. From sunset viewpoints to remote beaches, a charming location can be taken over by selfie-snapping tourists nearly overnight.

In the end, Europe’s most popular tourist destinations are unlikely to lose their appeal anytime soon. At the same time, the number of people traveling worldwide is expected to keep rising. According to the World Tourism Organization, 2026 is on track to set new records for international travel, with growth of 3-4% from the previous year.

DW.com/NAN 19-2-26

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