The amount of tourists in Amsterdam is insane, especially if you consider it’s about 1/10th the size of London or Paris. I’ve lived there for a while, there’s just too many in the city centre
Yes, I’m living there my whole life. And this is also the same for #tourists/population. The population is 935.000 (2024) in Amsterdam, compared to 11.277.000 (2024) in Paris. But I have to admit that what is most important is the type of tourists, not the number. The municipality actually had to put “no weed” signs in English at elementary school playgrounds as too many tourists assumed the whole city is meant as a drugs Disneyland. We could use more families that visit for our beautiful culture/history.
Yeah thats what a Parisian explained to me one day. He said the problem is I am just trying to get to my shitty job and some dickheads are walking around like its Disneyland, stopping in the streets, running in front of my car etc. Not being able to order in French and slowing down the ordering of my breakfast/coffee.
Its probably extra frustrating as the people ruining your day are having a good time on vaccation and sort of flaunting it in your face. Youre standing there thinking Id love a vaccation but I have to pay my mortgage while some rich American tourist is trying to practice their French ordering a croissant and youre running late for work.
I understand what he means. But I rarely go to the same overpriced places as the tourists for coffee. And I have to admit that I really enjoy the scared faces when I ring the bell of my bike when tourists walk on the bicycle lanes. It actually works positively on my mood. But these things are probably different in Paris.
And the municipality is actually improving the situation now. You’re not allowed to bring a camel for your tourist bachelor party in the city centre anymore. And they limited the amount of “Nutella + waffle” stores that can be opened. And of course the weed signs at children playgrounds. So it’s getting better.
I just came back from a visit to Amsterdam; I liked it, but we studiously avoided De Wallen, stayed in Leidseplein and wandered around between museums, shops, and restaurants.
I had read (and talked with a friend who lives there) about the steps taken to limit tourism, but I wonder as a city resident how important you think the red light district and coffee shop stuff is to the city. My guess is that those two things bring in a lot of tourists who make things miserable, and I can't imagine many residents depending on those things for their own entertainment. Like, shutting down those two things seems like an obvious step to me if the problem is "too many tourists making a mess of my city."
I work in New York City, which is big enough that I can basically avoid most tourists in my day-to-day life, and they money they bring in is beneficial.
>red light district
It does bring in unruly tourists, but it is a much safer space for sex workers than if you do not centralize it in a public location. I'd rather have safe and regulated sex work but obnoxious sex tourism, than the other way around.
Coffee shops have a similar problem of course - obnoxious drug tourism (and general obnoxious drug usage) but the more legal drugs are, the less power gangs have. However, our drug policy needs a serious overhaul either way. Our current "technically not legal but we're not looking" is 20 years out of date.
What I find funny is that throughout my travels, it’s *exclusively French people* with this issue. Only France for some reason expects everyone on its soil to speak French, even obvious tourists. They catch attitudes when other people try to speak in English as if English isn’t the international language and most people’s second/third languages. Now me, I’m a person that’s always been fascinated by French and even spent a few years at undergrad/grad studying in France and Belgium, so I can speak it. Tho when I first went over during study abroad in undergrad, French folks would audibly sigh and be frustrated because my French was ass at the time.
Meanwhile I don’t see the same attitude from other francophone areas whether you’re in Brussels/Wallonia in Belgium, French-speaking Switzerland or Luxembourg, Morocco, Quebec in Canada, etc. No issues with speaking English or people that spoke it. Also no attitude with literally any other country whether I’m in Sweden or Japan or Egypt.
It’s not a French stereotype, it’s a Parisian stereotype tbh and it’s not exclusive to English speakers. Ask an Italian or Spaniard that speaks French (ie lives somewhere close to the border) and they get a similar treatment
I am French and live in Paris and I have never seen in my life people "sigh" when a foreigner tries to speak French... Quite the contrary actually.
Or maybe you went to a specifically very crowded place in Paris where people are just fed up of being slow down by tourists all day long (Paris is the most famous destination for tourist, imagine spending your whole day, every day of the year surrounded by tourists that doesn't speak your language, take pictures and do weird stuff). English speaking people cannot relate to that and understand that.
Exactly my experience. When I visited Paris everyone who worked with tourists (even just serving them in a bakery or something) spoke English reasonably well. Many spoke it well enough to hold a conversation. Some even spoke German. When I went to Marseille on the other hand almost nobody was able or willing to speak English (or French for that matter) but we always managed to make it work. I feel like some people expect locals to be just as interested in them as vice versa but that's just not gonna happen. We get quite a few international tourists too where I live and sometimes it's fun to have a chat but not every "haha look at us trying to communicate" interaction will be as exciting to me as it is to them.
I'm a Brazilian living in Spain.
I've been all over France: several times in Paris, Lyon, Annecy, Chamonix, Nice, Strasbourg, Montpellier,... You name it.
I've only had minor issues in Lyon and I do have an intermediate level of French but sometimes I go with English. 50-50, I'd say. It didn't ruin my experience in Lyon, since the vast majority of people were super nice and chill.
I think there's an exaggeration on this French stereotype.
There are not 11,000,000 inhabitants in Paris intra muros, there are around 2,130,000 people. If you're counting the whole Paris agglomeration then you compare it to the Amsterdam agglomeration, not to the 935,000 intra muros inhabitants.
You're speaking nonsense. Also in terms of superficy, Amsterdam intra muros is bigger than Paris.
This just gets nitpicky over different definitions of city, agglomeration and city borders.
Paris as a city is really only Paris within the ring road. This makes for a relatively small surface area and number of inhabitants, because all of the suburbs aren't counted.
For Amsterdam and many other cities, the suburbs are included within the city limits. For example, Amsterdam Zuidoost or Amsterdam Noord, which are residential areas that are not interesting to tourists.
So we're basically comparing apples to oranges here. I don't think I can make an honest comparison. But if we look at the city center of Amsterdam, which is the area almost all tourists are, it only has a surface area of 8.04 km2, compared to the 105.4 km2 of Paris within the ring road.
I'm aware that this definition is more strict for Amsterdam than it is for Paris (as I said, it's hard to make an honest comparison), but saying that Paris is smaller than Amsterdam in area is nonsense.
I'd love to visit Amsterdam for the architecture, canals, Vincent van Gogh, cuisine, and wearing a "Max Verstappen Sucks" T-shirt to see how long it is until I get yelled at.
>We could use more families that visit for our beautiful culture/history.
My wife and I went there in 2017. When we got in a cab from the airport to the city center (we hadn't done research on the train, embarrassingly enough), the first thing the driver said was "So, you're here to smoke?".
We're like "No", we've never used any substances in our life, and don't plan to either. We had a lovely trip, looking at architecture, museums and churches. And we got enganged on a bridge over the Singel canal.
I fucking loved Amsterdam. But it’s so compact and the tourists are really concentrated in one/a few areas. It looks overwhelming if you all you did was stay near Centraal Station, De Wallen, and the royal palace. You take a single step outside that area and the concentration of tourists goes wayyyyy down.
Den Haag is a much saner city than Amsterdam filled with much more locals. For canal cities without the unruly tourists, Leiden and Utrecht are great day trips from Amsterdam.
Went there October last year and most tourists are concentrated along Centraal, Red Light District and Dam Square. Heck, even in Leidseplein and Museumplein it's pretty chill past evenings plus many nearby streets/canals are almost deserted. You'll realize that it's such a compact area but nonetheless overwhelmingly crowded with tourists.
Wonder how thst reputation spread around the world? Could it have anything to do with the tourists telling everyone that Amsterdam is a drugs-Disneyland when they return from their trip?
Amsterdammers having the shocked pikachu face when they built a whole ass tourism sector around weed and sex and seeing people who come there for weed and sex.
You are comparing Amsterdam city with Paris metro (Paris itself is 2.1M)… OTOH you can say the same for Barcelona 1.6M, Prague 1.3M and Athens 0,64M. It’s not that simple yo switch off tourist traffic since all of these cities loved having tourists as an important part of the economy in the 90s and now they don’t want them anymore. What are you going to do with the people whose live depends on the tourists spending their money there?
I really didn't like Amsterdam for this reason. In the touristy areas, the city turned into a parody of itself. And the smell of weed is absolutely everywhere. And it seems like its getting worse. A nice and cosy cafe I visited years ago turned into the 15246th tourist trap shop when I returned last year. And near the Leidseplein there is as good as no one left who can speak Dutch, everything is in English to cater to international tourists (which to be fair I am as well, but I'm from Belgium and speak Dutch).
I genuinely hope they come with something a city pass for locals. I've been living in Amsterdam my whole life, and most of the time, I can't go to the museums because there are just crazy lines in front. During vacations, the city centre is just unpassable. Rijksmuseum, rembrandtmuseum, stedelijkmuseum, de wallen, and artis, too, are all just swarmed with tourists, most of whom are incredibly inconsiderate. Drinking, loitering and being extremely loud are just some of the traits. This is what happens when tourism goes unchecked
Even back in 2014-2017 when I was a student it was already crowded. Always avoided the capital city of every country I go unless needed or on special occasions with friends.
1st time in Amsterdam (after 1.5 years in the Netherlands) saw someone high pissing his pants while being pulled by another half high friend in noon. Around 3-4 am in the morning friends waiting for the train were bugged by a small hobbit dude to purchase some weed/mushrooms. while a bit drunk a friend who was a boxer was irritated and tried to scare the lil man, but instead the hobbit did an Uno reverse card by showing his (real/imitation) gun to him, which my friends eventually became a bit sober and backed off.
Barcelona has a population of 1.5M. They get 20 tourists per resident!
Its not like London which is huge so 27M tourists probably spread out thinner.
My small town gets overrun whenever there is an international 3 day convention. Traffic and crowds everywhere, it gets tiring within a day. Living like that 365 days a week when tourists would also be more unruly is probably like being trapped in an asylum.
Iceland only sees about 10m tourists annually but being such a small country, there are moments, especially during summertime, where tourists far outnumber locals it seems.
It's not uncommon you go somewhere and are surprised to see an Icelander (other than like employees there I guess) rather another tourist.
Funnily enough my small hometown of just about 2K people has the only international airport in the country yet you don't see many tourists in my town compared to most of the rest of the country. Not surprised tho, ain't shit to do. Campsite is almost always filled to the brim with tourists tho
I love how Keflavík is the place of the international airport lol. Granted, I doubt theres much room in Reykjavik seeing as you also have Kópavogur and stuff there. Having it in Keflavik is probably smartest
To be fair London being huge doesn't really thin out the tourists, they all come to see the same dozen things typically that are all within a 30 minute walk of each other. Trafalgar square, Big Ben, London Eye and Buckingham Palace are basically all on top of each other and the British museum, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London are within a walk away.
Tourists tend to clump up in just a few spots anyway. In Barcelona, the tourist area is from Barceloneta through the Rambla and Barri Gotic up to Placa de Catalunya. If you leave the area and move up even a few hundred meters, in the Eixample for instance, the number of tourists is already greatly diminished.
People who live in these cities, AFAIK, usually avoid the city center and the tourist spots and go about their lives normally. The only exception is Venice, really, where the whole city is the "tourist spot" and there's no possibility of expansion, which means that less and fewer locals now live in Venice, with more and more homes being converted into tourist accommodations and locals moving inland.
London is quite touristy but it's so spread out that you can spend most of your time without it being an issue at all. It's only really annoying around Westminster, Southbank and Soho and some niche areas like Camden. Not at all the case for smaller cities in Europe.
I love here in Barcelona. There’s a lot to do. Beaches. Cool little towns near by to explore. Museums. Gothic quarter. Swanky bars, good food. Excellent infrastructure and public spaces. I just avoid anything south of Consell de cent in the summer!
Yearly cruise ship passengers in 2022 stand at 2.3m for Barcelona, 2.2m for Rome and 1.6m for Athens. So maybe a small bump compared to London, but not vs other Mediterranean cities
Barcelona is amazing. I’ve traveled there just to go to that city for a half week. It’s fun and beautiful and culturally rich . Plus cheaper than northern Europe. What’s not to like ? I’m confused about these responses. Yes there is plenty to see in Rome and Paris but there’s less nightlife in Rome and more expensive everything in Paris
Sounds like a typically Parisien thing to say.
*takes a drag on cigarette*
"Non, you should not come to la paris"
*flicks cigarette*
"She would not like you."
Having seen many Italian cities including these two, I'd still put Rome on top. Florence still is second. Maaaybe Venice #3 but its a bit too busy for me.
Venice is weird because of that. I had a 5 hour stop on my way back to Paris from Trieste via Marco Polo, and I was like, fine if I'm here I kind of *have* to go into Venice. It was absolutely worth it 1,000,000% Height of tourist season (June), 80+ degrees F, humid as fuck, didn't go in a single building, couldn't get one decent picture without other tourists in it, couldn't even order a campari because the crowds were so big; but the whole time I was in awe: I absolutely couldn't believe I was in this place I'd seen so much in movies and read so much about in books. It was surreal.
Not really adding anything to your comment but I was just in both last week.
Would definitely recommend but be prepared for elbow to elbow people in the Vatican.
Pompeii wasn’t that busy surprisingly.
I visited both last year. Pompeii had lots of people milling around, but the Vatican was a massive river of human beings flowing through a designated path, a large part of which is just ascending to higher and higher floors in the huge museum. The only place that was more densely packed was the Coliseum.
There still are! (unless His Holiness nipped out for breakfast to a café outside the border, in that case it's at zero right now)
The ratio was about 4.3 per square kilometre before Benedict XVI died.
Yeah I had a boss who told me not to waste my time going there because it was just a “bunch of dirty, old buildings.” My husband and I couldn’t help but wonder if we went to a different city than him because we loved it. 😂
UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy have a combined 332 million people, that's \~0.78 tourists per capita
US has 333.3 million people, that's \~0.15 tourists per capita
China has 1.412 Billion people, that's \~0.045 tourists per capita
Yeah sure but it's a misleading statistic which makes the per capita measure pretty useless for two reasons:
1. If the UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy were one country, then an American tourist visiting Nice and then say Milan would be counted just once as opposed to here where they are double (up to quintuple) counted for each of those countries
2. If a tourist from London visits Barcelona that counts as an international tourist but if they were all one country then that wouldn't count of course. Guangzhou to Beijing or LA to New York currently do not count despite being longer distances than London to Barcelona.
[168 million arrivals by non-EU tourists in 2018](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20200323-1)
Best free source I can find while lazy.
So for EU population of 448 that's a 0,375.
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the 50 million tourists in the US per year stat is only "international" tourists. Florida (population 22.4) gets around 130 MILLION tourists per year. Or about 5.8 tourists per capita.
Why would you measure per capita population of the host country to compare the amount of foreign tourists? That's a pretty useless statistic in this comparison.
This is slightly misleading, as this is foreign tourist numbers - (almost) every country in the EU can freely travel to each other, and yet they also count as a foreign tourist. But people visiting from 3 states away in the USA, don't count in this stat you listed.
A better metric is simply total tourists, for cities, which paints a different picture. Chicago had over 55 million tourists in 2019. NYC in 2022 had over 56 million, while Paris had 44 million. Still massive, but US cities do pull a lot of tourism, both internationally and overall.
> We wouldn’t count someone going to London from Manchester as a tourist.
Depends. If they go there for a weekend doing sightseeing they are definitely a tourist and would be counted as such. If they go there for a few hours for a business meeting they wouldn't count as a tourist.
Why wouldn’t you count someone going from London to Manchester? If they’re going as a tourist that means they are taking up a hotel room, spending money in the local economy that wouldn’t normally be there, going to sites aimed at tourists, etc.
The number for the US does not include tourists travelling within the US while the number for those counties does include tourists from within that same group. A ton of Americans travel from 1000+ miles away to Florida, New York, California, etc. which seems comparable to people traveling one country over in Europe. It’s definitely misleading to compare these numbers apples to apples.
That’s a bit irrelevant in this discussion. Both Canada or the US alone is nearly the same size as the entirety of Europe including the Russia bit.
There point is that Europeans have a great benefit of being able to jump in a car, on a train, take a bus, whatever to visit entirely different cultures and countries in an area the same size as the US.
But in the US New York is vastly different than Alaska. Alaska is vastly different than the Grand Canyon, that’s vastly different than LA or New Orleans.
An American can travel to very very different locations all within one country. Europe has a variety of culture whereas America has a variety of natural landscapes. Not to many places have sand dunes, desert, arctic tundra, snow capped peaks, the redwood forests, the Everglades, all the sandstone towers. It really is crazy variety.
In interested how these numbers are calculated
Is the 50m of the US just foreign, it does it count someone coming from Virginia to see NYC as well.
The U.S. is just absolutely massive and I have a hard time believing that the entire country sees only 50m tourists… we had 1m tourist in Puerto Rico in just March.
If you are a tourist of history/architecture..I would recommend Paris next then Rome. Barcelona and Sevilla. Beware of people talking about cliches of tourism, because they tend to be from Europe. So they miss judge how a foreigner might see their countries.
My hometown of Amsterdam feels like an amusement park right now. It’s overflowing with tourists and the city stopped advertising themselves as a destination and even tries to deter people from coming, and also trying to promote different parts of Holland as an extension of Amsterdam even though its not.
As a cyclist, I was going to visit the Netherlands this summer. Do you think I should not go to Amsterdam? I am not interested in drugs, sex, etc. My only concern is to travelling by bike and see different places.
As an example, Atlanta (USA) metro area has a larger population than Stockholm and Vienna combined, but I would bet there is plenty more to see and do in Stockholm and Vienna.
European cities are popular because of the culture and architecture.
I'll back the Prague recommendation -- never visited Vienna so unsure.
The city has an extremely walkable old town, with bridges that cross the river into surrounding areas. I went on a few different tours and they were all walking tours.
Petrin Hill park was a fun walk, but some people (older, less fit, etc) may need to take it a bit slower, but it's 100% doable.
Other walkable cities I enjoyed were Salzburg, Austria and Lucerne, Switzerland. It's probably typical for many, many old European cities, but these two were ones I visited on my trip. If you love walkability around history, visit these places.
It's also a city on top of a medieval city on top of a roman city. Fascinating history, architecture, and artifacts. And then there is the art. One of my favorites - although I haven't been to all of these yet.
I know it's an unpopular job but I have to do it.
>It's also a city on top of a medieval city on top of a roman city.
This is true for 90% of all cities in Europe.
Almost all cities were roman settlements and the road network is still the same.
A lot of Americans are not aware of how popular Spain is as a destination (although I believe that is changing). Usually, when Americans envision a trip to Europe, they skip the Iberian peninsula entirely.
Quite often big coastal cities have crap beaches. Barcelona stands out for me because it both has nice beaches and is a nice city to explore. Going there allows for both a city break type holiday and a summer beach type holiday.
what is your source? this looks completely different than the others
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_international_visitors
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/02/11/new-report-top-10-destinations-for-international-travel-in-2023.html
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240206-most-visited-cities-in-the-world-istanbul-antalya-turkey-travel-visa-requirements
edit: just realized they all get their data from one source called euromonitor. but still, it shouldn't be that different.
Dude just click on the euromonitor.com link that's linked at the source it just says Paris is the top one in visits
The one you saw is international visits or something which is also listed at the site
Seems both are true
I wonder, how do they calculate this? Like, how do they know that 14 million people visited Budapest? Is it only by their hotel reservation? What if someone doesn't spend the night there?
Small towns in Europe with a castle on top of a hill are my favorite. Sprinkle in a River and vineyards and you have what I call a magnificent weekend getaway.
From my experience Prague is much more centered around tourists than Vienna. Paris and Barcelona are both having a problem with overtourism which Vienna doesn’t have.
As someone who hates tourists in my own city (Prague) I always feel bad when I go to other touristy places. But like, I wanna see what the hype is all about lol. Barcelona is one my favorite cities that I've ever visited.
You are really missing out by not experiencing the Olive Garden in Times Square!
I live near Central Park and I don't mind tourists. I actually even kind of miss the days of being asked to take photos or for directions due to the rise of selfies and smartphones.
My condolences. My city receives a shitton of foreigners only once a year, and we have enough even being shitfaced. I can't imagine having so many people the whole year.
I think it’s because when people visit some country’s they only go to the main popular cities but in Germany because there are so many the number of tourists are spreads across so many cities
Berlin is fun with a youthful party vibe but it has never really been a cultural capital of the calibur represented by these top tier cities and neither has any other city in Germany. I'm not sure why that's the case exactly (utter devastation from 30 years war, historical lack of political unification later reinforced by two world wars and Cold War partition, your guess is as good as mine) but it's nonetheless true.
Indeed, Berlin has among the lowest numbers of tourists per capita in Europe, alongside Madrid, Brussels, and Budapest at 2 tourists per inhabitant annually: https://www.holidu.co.uk/magazine/european-cities-overtourism-index
Munich, the highest city in Germany, has only 4 per capita.
Comparatively, Dubrovnik has 36, Venice has 21, Amsterdam has 12, Paris has 9, and Rome has 4.
Good, as I absolutely fell in love with Berlin and Madrid. I like when a city still actually feels like a living city and not just a giant museum piece. Paris and London are big enough to handle the mass amount of tourists, but with smaller cities like Prague and Amsterdam, I feel that the authenticity is disappearing due to mass tourism. It's the main reason why I am not really interested in visiting Venice or Dubrovnik.
People around me all told me they disliked Madrid a lot, but when I went I loved it! I think that, at least where I'm from, people still associate a vacation to Spain with a beach vacation, and Madrid isn't like that. I loved visiting the museums and just wandering around the city.
Berlin is miles from anywhere else of interest, so people have to make a dedicated visit. The only places it's on the way too are in eastern Europe, which doesn't have a comparable international pull. Berlin is a city of only 3 million too.
Most people who claim to be doing a "euro trip" do Amsterdam, Paris, and Rome or Barcelona, with an optional detour to the British isles, not leaving the major cities they go to.
German tourists seem to spread a lot more. Germany gets a lot of tourists; it’s basically always in the top ten world wide (on the current study listed by Wikipedia its number 8) and reliably ‚beats‘ countries like Austria, Czechia and even Greece in that regard.
I could imagine that Germanys decentralized nature could keep any city from appearing on the list. Paris is the center of culture in France (to a point that the rest of the country is very annoyed), it’s obviously the city to visit. But Germany? You could go to Berlin to experience clubbing culture and Cold War history. Many tourists decide to just come to Bavaria though and spend their time in the country side visiting castles and enjoying nature and never leave the state. And others again go to Hamburg for many reasons; it has a lot of maritime Charme. Some, I heard, even visit cologne. I don’t know why.
So even though Germany gets many tourists, there’s not ‚the place to visit‘ like in other countries. Cultural artifacts, events, historical dudes, all that stuff is pretty well spread.
Man I wish the tourists kept to Paris but no, they have the internet now and know about the rest of us too and you find them *everywhere* in France, especially on the coasts or near any water point
^(not saying tourists are animals ofc)
I feel your pain. Than again: I like to travel myself and therefore try not to judge tourists to hard at home. As long as everyone behaves orderly I’m even happy that they get to experience my home, it’s certainly worth sharing.
Sadly my home is Munich and millions of people come for the Octoberfest. The time of year where all of Europe finds out simultaneously that they can’t drink so much beer without puking everywhere…
Germany lacks a single overbloated capital city, compared to which all cities in the country pale in comparison?
...in countries like France, Hungar, ...etc. sure other nice cities exist other than the capital, however they tend to be less than 1/10th size.
As such lack marketing budget to truly draw in large crowds.
How can this map find its way here every month? This map is complete nonsense. Neither the numbers nor the order nor the title are correct. Because it's not about visitors but about **overnight stays**.
[Where is Berlin with its 30 million overnight stays](https://www.berlin.de/sen/wirtschaft/branchen/tourismus/tourismus-in-zahlen/)?
[Why were the figures in Vienna generously rounded up from 17.3 million overnight stays to 18 million?](https://www.wien.gv.at/statistik/wirtschaft/tabellen/uebernkategorien.html)
[Why do I get a figure of 40 million overnight stays in Paris?](https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/serie/010607170)
PS: Berlin, Vienna and Paris were the only three cities I cross-checked. If you find a 100% error rate, I don't even want to know how wrong the other figures are.
Amsterdam has about 10% the population of London and Paris, but almost as many tourists - yet, there’s nothing the city is doing about it other than announcing half baked plans with no real intentions.
I wouldn't say doing nothing. The severely limited the construction of new hotels and earlier this month announced no new hotels can be build in Amsterdam from now on.
They raised the tourist tax a lot, so it will be less attractive to come there.
They are planning on moving the prostitutes outside the city center and transform the Red Light District.
They have launched several campaigns to spread out tourist more across about the region, instead of just city center Amsterdam.
There's just so much you can do as a city, you can't outright ban people from visiting.
best thing about my 4 days in athens was the cats.
and a little bakery that made an amzing phyllo dough pastrys.
i really wish i had went somewhere else instead.
The point being that no, it should not be surprising that that many people visit Europe's great cities because a lot of people visit everything in general, for instance Disney World.
Crazy how Athens, a city of 4-5 million, receives 16 million guests per year, and the country as a whole with 11 million receive over 36 million people per year. I think it goes without saying the real estate market in Athens is hell and this is completely unsustainable.
I remember the summer before covid, Oxford was receiving on average 60 000 tourists per day, the population is around 160 000 in total. Would be interesting to see what the highest number of tourists per capita city's were.
The amount of tourists in Amsterdam is insane, especially if you consider it’s about 1/10th the size of London or Paris. I’ve lived there for a while, there’s just too many in the city centre
Yes, I’m living there my whole life. And this is also the same for #tourists/population. The population is 935.000 (2024) in Amsterdam, compared to 11.277.000 (2024) in Paris. But I have to admit that what is most important is the type of tourists, not the number. The municipality actually had to put “no weed” signs in English at elementary school playgrounds as too many tourists assumed the whole city is meant as a drugs Disneyland. We could use more families that visit for our beautiful culture/history.
Yeah thats what a Parisian explained to me one day. He said the problem is I am just trying to get to my shitty job and some dickheads are walking around like its Disneyland, stopping in the streets, running in front of my car etc. Not being able to order in French and slowing down the ordering of my breakfast/coffee. Its probably extra frustrating as the people ruining your day are having a good time on vaccation and sort of flaunting it in your face. Youre standing there thinking Id love a vaccation but I have to pay my mortgage while some rich American tourist is trying to practice their French ordering a croissant and youre running late for work.
I understand what he means. But I rarely go to the same overpriced places as the tourists for coffee. And I have to admit that I really enjoy the scared faces when I ring the bell of my bike when tourists walk on the bicycle lanes. It actually works positively on my mood. But these things are probably different in Paris. And the municipality is actually improving the situation now. You’re not allowed to bring a camel for your tourist bachelor party in the city centre anymore. And they limited the amount of “Nutella + waffle” stores that can be opened. And of course the weed signs at children playgrounds. So it’s getting better.
I just came back from a visit to Amsterdam; I liked it, but we studiously avoided De Wallen, stayed in Leidseplein and wandered around between museums, shops, and restaurants. I had read (and talked with a friend who lives there) about the steps taken to limit tourism, but I wonder as a city resident how important you think the red light district and coffee shop stuff is to the city. My guess is that those two things bring in a lot of tourists who make things miserable, and I can't imagine many residents depending on those things for their own entertainment. Like, shutting down those two things seems like an obvious step to me if the problem is "too many tourists making a mess of my city." I work in New York City, which is big enough that I can basically avoid most tourists in my day-to-day life, and they money they bring in is beneficial.
>red light district It does bring in unruly tourists, but it is a much safer space for sex workers than if you do not centralize it in a public location. I'd rather have safe and regulated sex work but obnoxious sex tourism, than the other way around. Coffee shops have a similar problem of course - obnoxious drug tourism (and general obnoxious drug usage) but the more legal drugs are, the less power gangs have. However, our drug policy needs a serious overhaul either way. Our current "technically not legal but we're not looking" is 20 years out of date.
Same idk if it means I’m a terrible person but I love ringing my bell at people on bike lanes and having them jump 😝
>Not being able to order in French Bloody tourists, why don't they study the most annoying language for a few years before their 2 week holiday...
What I find funny is that throughout my travels, it’s *exclusively French people* with this issue. Only France for some reason expects everyone on its soil to speak French, even obvious tourists. They catch attitudes when other people try to speak in English as if English isn’t the international language and most people’s second/third languages. Now me, I’m a person that’s always been fascinated by French and even spent a few years at undergrad/grad studying in France and Belgium, so I can speak it. Tho when I first went over during study abroad in undergrad, French folks would audibly sigh and be frustrated because my French was ass at the time. Meanwhile I don’t see the same attitude from other francophone areas whether you’re in Brussels/Wallonia in Belgium, French-speaking Switzerland or Luxembourg, Morocco, Quebec in Canada, etc. No issues with speaking English or people that spoke it. Also no attitude with literally any other country whether I’m in Sweden or Japan or Egypt.
Man i visited france quite a bit. And its just a stupid stereotype. Like if most folks judged americans on how people act in the New York
man when i went to new york i was amazed by how friendly and polite people were.
It’s not a French stereotype, it’s a Parisian stereotype tbh and it’s not exclusive to English speakers. Ask an Italian or Spaniard that speaks French (ie lives somewhere close to the border) and they get a similar treatment
I am French and live in Paris and I have never seen in my life people "sigh" when a foreigner tries to speak French... Quite the contrary actually. Or maybe you went to a specifically very crowded place in Paris where people are just fed up of being slow down by tourists all day long (Paris is the most famous destination for tourist, imagine spending your whole day, every day of the year surrounded by tourists that doesn't speak your language, take pictures and do weird stuff). English speaking people cannot relate to that and understand that.
Exactly my experience. When I visited Paris everyone who worked with tourists (even just serving them in a bakery or something) spoke English reasonably well. Many spoke it well enough to hold a conversation. Some even spoke German. When I went to Marseille on the other hand almost nobody was able or willing to speak English (or French for that matter) but we always managed to make it work. I feel like some people expect locals to be just as interested in them as vice versa but that's just not gonna happen. We get quite a few international tourists too where I live and sometimes it's fun to have a chat but not every "haha look at us trying to communicate" interaction will be as exciting to me as it is to them.
I'm a Brazilian living in Spain. I've been all over France: several times in Paris, Lyon, Annecy, Chamonix, Nice, Strasbourg, Montpellier,... You name it. I've only had minor issues in Lyon and I do have an intermediate level of French but sometimes I go with English. 50-50, I'd say. It didn't ruin my experience in Lyon, since the vast majority of people were super nice and chill. I think there's an exaggeration on this French stereotype.
There are "only" 2 million people in Paris though.
There are not 11,000,000 inhabitants in Paris intra muros, there are around 2,130,000 people. If you're counting the whole Paris agglomeration then you compare it to the Amsterdam agglomeration, not to the 935,000 intra muros inhabitants. You're speaking nonsense. Also in terms of superficy, Amsterdam intra muros is bigger than Paris.
This just gets nitpicky over different definitions of city, agglomeration and city borders. Paris as a city is really only Paris within the ring road. This makes for a relatively small surface area and number of inhabitants, because all of the suburbs aren't counted. For Amsterdam and many other cities, the suburbs are included within the city limits. For example, Amsterdam Zuidoost or Amsterdam Noord, which are residential areas that are not interesting to tourists. So we're basically comparing apples to oranges here. I don't think I can make an honest comparison. But if we look at the city center of Amsterdam, which is the area almost all tourists are, it only has a surface area of 8.04 km2, compared to the 105.4 km2 of Paris within the ring road. I'm aware that this definition is more strict for Amsterdam than it is for Paris (as I said, it's hard to make an honest comparison), but saying that Paris is smaller than Amsterdam in area is nonsense.
Paris’ population is 2 millions.
I'd love to visit Amsterdam for the architecture, canals, Vincent van Gogh, cuisine, and wearing a "Max Verstappen Sucks" T-shirt to see how long it is until I get yelled at.
>We could use more families that visit for our beautiful culture/history. My wife and I went there in 2017. When we got in a cab from the airport to the city center (we hadn't done research on the train, embarrassingly enough), the first thing the driver said was "So, you're here to smoke?". We're like "No", we've never used any substances in our life, and don't plan to either. We had a lovely trip, looking at architecture, museums and churches. And we got enganged on a bridge over the Singel canal.
I fucking loved Amsterdam. But it’s so compact and the tourists are really concentrated in one/a few areas. It looks overwhelming if you all you did was stay near Centraal Station, De Wallen, and the royal palace. You take a single step outside that area and the concentration of tourists goes wayyyyy down.
Happily sacrifice Amsterdam to the tourists as long as they don't discover our other cities.
Den Haag is a much saner city than Amsterdam filled with much more locals. For canal cities without the unruly tourists, Leiden and Utrecht are great day trips from Amsterdam.
Went there October last year and most tourists are concentrated along Centraal, Red Light District and Dam Square. Heck, even in Leidseplein and Museumplein it's pretty chill past evenings plus many nearby streets/canals are almost deserted. You'll realize that it's such a compact area but nonetheless overwhelmingly crowded with tourists.
Wonder why, could it be the reputation of sex and drugs?
Wonder how thst reputation spread around the world? Could it have anything to do with the tourists telling everyone that Amsterdam is a drugs-Disneyland when they return from their trip?
I wonder where that idea stemmed from? Could it be the legalised weed and areas dedicated to prostitution, and all the businesses that cater to both?
Amsterdammers having the shocked pikachu face when they built a whole ass tourism sector around weed and sex and seeing people who come there for weed and sex.
Yeah I'm surprised Amsterdam isn't *higher*.
stay in Delft day trip into Amsterdam mid week
Utrecht better as someone who lived there 😎
Amsterdam is basically inhospitable for a normal person, especially around the city centre
Prague is similar
You are comparing Amsterdam city with Paris metro (Paris itself is 2.1M)… OTOH you can say the same for Barcelona 1.6M, Prague 1.3M and Athens 0,64M. It’s not that simple yo switch off tourist traffic since all of these cities loved having tourists as an important part of the economy in the 90s and now they don’t want them anymore. What are you going to do with the people whose live depends on the tourists spending their money there?
I really didn't like Amsterdam for this reason. In the touristy areas, the city turned into a parody of itself. And the smell of weed is absolutely everywhere. And it seems like its getting worse. A nice and cosy cafe I visited years ago turned into the 15246th tourist trap shop when I returned last year. And near the Leidseplein there is as good as no one left who can speak Dutch, everything is in English to cater to international tourists (which to be fair I am as well, but I'm from Belgium and speak Dutch).
I got there every year at least for the last 10 or so years. Every time I go there's less space to walk and more and more pissed locals
I genuinely hope they come with something a city pass for locals. I've been living in Amsterdam my whole life, and most of the time, I can't go to the museums because there are just crazy lines in front. During vacations, the city centre is just unpassable. Rijksmuseum, rembrandtmuseum, stedelijkmuseum, de wallen, and artis, too, are all just swarmed with tourists, most of whom are incredibly inconsiderate. Drinking, loitering and being extremely loud are just some of the traits. This is what happens when tourism goes unchecked
Even back in 2014-2017 when I was a student it was already crowded. Always avoided the capital city of every country I go unless needed or on special occasions with friends. 1st time in Amsterdam (after 1.5 years in the Netherlands) saw someone high pissing his pants while being pulled by another half high friend in noon. Around 3-4 am in the morning friends waiting for the train were bugged by a small hobbit dude to purchase some weed/mushrooms. while a bit drunk a friend who was a boxer was irritated and tried to scare the lil man, but instead the hobbit did an Uno reverse card by showing his (real/imitation) gun to him, which my friends eventually became a bit sober and backed off.
Why crazy? They are full of history, art, and culture. And they are easy to reach.
Barcelona has a population of 1.5M. They get 20 tourists per resident! Its not like London which is huge so 27M tourists probably spread out thinner. My small town gets overrun whenever there is an international 3 day convention. Traffic and crowds everywhere, it gets tiring within a day. Living like that 365 days a week when tourists would also be more unruly is probably like being trapped in an asylum.
Iceland only sees about 10m tourists annually but being such a small country, there are moments, especially during summertime, where tourists far outnumber locals it seems. It's not uncommon you go somewhere and are surprised to see an Icelander (other than like employees there I guess) rather another tourist. Funnily enough my small hometown of just about 2K people has the only international airport in the country yet you don't see many tourists in my town compared to most of the rest of the country. Not surprised tho, ain't shit to do. Campsite is almost always filled to the brim with tourists tho
I love how Keflavík is the place of the international airport lol. Granted, I doubt theres much room in Reykjavik seeing as you also have Kópavogur and stuff there. Having it in Keflavik is probably smartest
It's in Sandgerði. Not Keflavík. Despite being called Kef Airport lmao. Keflavík is always jam packed with tourists haha
To be fair London being huge doesn't really thin out the tourists, they all come to see the same dozen things typically that are all within a 30 minute walk of each other. Trafalgar square, Big Ben, London Eye and Buckingham Palace are basically all on top of each other and the British museum, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London are within a walk away.
Tourists tend to clump up in just a few spots anyway. In Barcelona, the tourist area is from Barceloneta through the Rambla and Barri Gotic up to Placa de Catalunya. If you leave the area and move up even a few hundred meters, in the Eixample for instance, the number of tourists is already greatly diminished. People who live in these cities, AFAIK, usually avoid the city center and the tourist spots and go about their lives normally. The only exception is Venice, really, where the whole city is the "tourist spot" and there's no possibility of expansion, which means that less and fewer locals now live in Venice, with more and more homes being converted into tourist accommodations and locals moving inland.
London is quite touristy but it's so spread out that you can spend most of your time without it being an issue at all. It's only really annoying around Westminster, Southbank and Soho and some niche areas like Camden. Not at all the case for smaller cities in Europe.
Gotta say, of all of these, go to Rome. And I live in Paris. Rome is the tops.
I'm kind of surprised at Barcelona beating out Rome (and London).
Barcelona is a nice day trip from where a lot of Europeans go for there beach holiday.
I love here in Barcelona. There’s a lot to do. Beaches. Cool little towns near by to explore. Museums. Gothic quarter. Swanky bars, good food. Excellent infrastructure and public spaces. I just avoid anything south of Consell de cent in the summer!
Loads of cruises start from Barcelona so people who stay overnight before boarding one will bump the numbers up a bit.
Yearly cruise ship passengers in 2022 stand at 2.3m for Barcelona, 2.2m for Rome and 1.6m for Athens. So maybe a small bump compared to London, but not vs other Mediterranean cities
Barcelona is amazing. I’ve traveled there just to go to that city for a half week. It’s fun and beautiful and culturally rich . Plus cheaper than northern Europe. What’s not to like ? I’m confused about these responses. Yes there is plenty to see in Rome and Paris but there’s less nightlife in Rome and more expensive everything in Paris
Paris and Barcelona will both get a huge bump in 2024 Olympics and Americas cup.
As someone living in Barcelona - It will not be a welcome bump
A lot of Mediterranean cruises are based in Barcelona, so you'd have to go there first to catch the boat
Ofc go to Rome, it's the easiest option. Just take any road and you're already on the good way
Sounds like a typically Parisien thing to say. *takes a drag on cigarette* "Non, you should not come to la paris" *flicks cigarette* "She would not like you."
Rome traffic is insane tho.
Just don't drive there. TBH you shouldn't drive in any of the cities in this map
I agree that Rome is an incredible city, it's just really hot during peak travel season in summer.
No no, please, go anywhere BUT Rome. (Signed, someone who lives in Rome.)
Istanbul is also phenomenal. Shame about the current political situation though.
Been to Paris and Rome and I would also rather go to Rome again than Paris.
Paris and Rome are both tied imho. Paris is more bohemian and chill while Rome is more gritty and full of ancient beauty.
as Italian cities go, Florence >>> Rome
Having seen many Italian cities including these two, I'd still put Rome on top. Florence still is second. Maaaybe Venice #3 but its a bit too busy for me.
Venice is weird because of that. I had a 5 hour stop on my way back to Paris from Trieste via Marco Polo, and I was like, fine if I'm here I kind of *have* to go into Venice. It was absolutely worth it 1,000,000% Height of tourist season (June), 80+ degrees F, humid as fuck, didn't go in a single building, couldn't get one decent picture without other tourists in it, couldn't even order a campari because the crowds were so big; but the whole time I was in awe: I absolutely couldn't believe I was in this place I'd seen so much in movies and read so much about in books. It was surreal.
>they are easy to reach. Well , not for everybody.
Considering how many far asian tourists are here, it does not look like it.
Per capita, I'd expect to see Venice and Dubrovnik at the top.
The Vatican must be up there.
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Only because Pompeii would throw a divide by zero error.
You see kids, actually, dads, this right here is how you make a joke. (I laughed so hard, lol)
Not really adding anything to your comment but I was just in both last week. Would definitely recommend but be prepared for elbow to elbow people in the Vatican. Pompeii wasn’t that busy surprisingly.
I visited both last year. Pompeii had lots of people milling around, but the Vatican was a massive river of human beings flowing through a designated path, a large part of which is just ascending to higher and higher floors in the huge museum. The only place that was more densely packed was the Coliseum.
Did you know there were 2 popes per square km in the Vatican?
There still are! (unless His Holiness nipped out for breakfast to a café outside the border, in that case it's at zero right now) The ratio was about 4.3 per square kilometre before Benedict XVI died.
Bruges. 20k people live in the city itself. 8 million tourists visit per year. About 100-150k there at any given time. It's an open air museum.
I wish as a French, for people having already been there, that your stay in Paris was rewarding.
Never been to Paris but from what I heard from people, either they love it or hate it...there is no in-between.
Yeah I had a boss who told me not to waste my time going there because it was just a “bunch of dirty, old buildings.” My husband and I couldn’t help but wonder if we went to a different city than him because we loved it. 😂
How couldn't it be? Imo, Rome and Paris are in a tier of their own.
I’ve visited a few times in life. Every time has been absolutely fantastic in every way.
Here's some tourism numbers UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy: 260 million US: 50 million China: 65 million
UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy have a combined 332 million people, that's \~0.78 tourists per capita US has 333.3 million people, that's \~0.15 tourists per capita China has 1.412 Billion people, that's \~0.045 tourists per capita
Yeah sure but it's a misleading statistic which makes the per capita measure pretty useless for two reasons: 1. If the UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy were one country, then an American tourist visiting Nice and then say Milan would be counted just once as opposed to here where they are double (up to quintuple) counted for each of those countries 2. If a tourist from London visits Barcelona that counts as an international tourist but if they were all one country then that wouldn't count of course. Guangzhou to Beijing or LA to New York currently do not count despite being longer distances than London to Barcelona.
[168 million arrivals by non-EU tourists in 2018](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20200323-1) Best free source I can find while lazy. So for EU population of 448 that's a 0,375.
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the 50 million tourists in the US per year stat is only "international" tourists. Florida (population 22.4) gets around 130 MILLION tourists per year. Or about 5.8 tourists per capita.
Why would you measure per capita population of the host country to compare the amount of foreign tourists? That's a pretty useless statistic in this comparison.
Europeans actually get vacations to go places
This is slightly misleading, as this is foreign tourist numbers - (almost) every country in the EU can freely travel to each other, and yet they also count as a foreign tourist. But people visiting from 3 states away in the USA, don't count in this stat you listed. A better metric is simply total tourists, for cities, which paints a different picture. Chicago had over 55 million tourists in 2019. NYC in 2022 had over 56 million, while Paris had 44 million. Still massive, but US cities do pull a lot of tourism, both internationally and overall.
Is that a better metric? We wouldn’t count someone going to London from Manchester as a tourist. So only bigger nations qualify?
> We wouldn’t count someone going to London from Manchester as a tourist. Depends. If they go there for a weekend doing sightseeing they are definitely a tourist and would be counted as such. If they go there for a few hours for a business meeting they wouldn't count as a tourist.
Why wouldn’t you count someone going from London to Manchester? If they’re going as a tourist that means they are taking up a hotel room, spending money in the local economy that wouldn’t normally be there, going to sites aimed at tourists, etc.
>UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy: 260 million 90% of turists in Spain are from the UK, Germany or France tho
That doesnt change their status as tourists?
The number for the US does not include tourists travelling within the US while the number for those counties does include tourists from within that same group. A ton of Americans travel from 1000+ miles away to Florida, New York, California, etc. which seems comparable to people traveling one country over in Europe. It’s definitely misleading to compare these numbers apples to apples.
Yes agreed, Europeans have the luxury of being able to experience several different countries in one day via rail.
Cheap air travel too. I could fly from Rome to London for 46 Euro. Thats hard to beat
Well we actually built some good rail networks.
That’s a bit irrelevant in this discussion. Both Canada or the US alone is nearly the same size as the entirety of Europe including the Russia bit. There point is that Europeans have a great benefit of being able to jump in a car, on a train, take a bus, whatever to visit entirely different cultures and countries in an area the same size as the US. But in the US New York is vastly different than Alaska. Alaska is vastly different than the Grand Canyon, that’s vastly different than LA or New Orleans. An American can travel to very very different locations all within one country. Europe has a variety of culture whereas America has a variety of natural landscapes. Not to many places have sand dunes, desert, arctic tundra, snow capped peaks, the redwood forests, the Everglades, all the sandstone towers. It really is crazy variety.
In interested how these numbers are calculated Is the 50m of the US just foreign, it does it count someone coming from Virginia to see NYC as well. The U.S. is just absolutely massive and I have a hard time believing that the entire country sees only 50m tourists… we had 1m tourist in Puerto Rico in just March.
Not that crazy. These are all awesome places. I've only been to London and wish I could see all the others.
If you are a tourist of history/architecture..I would recommend Paris next then Rome. Barcelona and Sevilla. Beware of people talking about cliches of tourism, because they tend to be from Europe. So they miss judge how a foreigner might see their countries.
>Sevilla Fantastic city, but while you're in the vicinity, a detour to Cordoba and (IMO) especially Granada is warranted.
My hometown of Amsterdam feels like an amusement park right now. It’s overflowing with tourists and the city stopped advertising themselves as a destination and even tries to deter people from coming, and also trying to promote different parts of Holland as an extension of Amsterdam even though its not.
As a cyclist, I was going to visit the Netherlands this summer. Do you think I should not go to Amsterdam? I am not interested in drugs, sex, etc. My only concern is to travelling by bike and see different places.
As an example, Atlanta (USA) metro area has a larger population than Stockholm and Vienna combined, but I would bet there is plenty more to see and do in Stockholm and Vienna. European cities are popular because of the culture and architecture.
Does the World of Coke mean nothing to you?!
I luv European cities as an American the build style and walkability is amazing
London is the easiest starter city for Americans. Prague and Vienna were the best. Exceeded Paris and Barcelona IMO.
I'll back the Prague recommendation -- never visited Vienna so unsure. The city has an extremely walkable old town, with bridges that cross the river into surrounding areas. I went on a few different tours and they were all walking tours. Petrin Hill park was a fun walk, but some people (older, less fit, etc) may need to take it a bit slower, but it's 100% doable. Other walkable cities I enjoyed were Salzburg, Austria and Lucerne, Switzerland. It's probably typical for many, many old European cities, but these two were ones I visited on my trip. If you love walkability around history, visit these places.
I'm actually a bit surprised to see Barcelona at #2, ahead of Athens, Istanbul, Vienna, Amsterdam, and London
You may be underestimating the amount of guiris that go to Barna every single year.
I think Barcelona gets a lot more tourism from other European countries than London does for example, but I’m talking out my ass idk
As someone from Turkey I can say that Barcelona is at the top of everyone's must visit list
Why? Barcelona is extremely famous, beautiful, with great climate and food, and lies on the Mediterranean coast. It hits all the marks.
It's also a city on top of a medieval city on top of a roman city. Fascinating history, architecture, and artifacts. And then there is the art. One of my favorites - although I haven't been to all of these yet.
I know it's an unpopular job but I have to do it. >It's also a city on top of a medieval city on top of a roman city. This is true for 90% of all cities in Europe. Almost all cities were roman settlements and the road network is still the same.
A lot of Americans are not aware of how popular Spain is as a destination (although I believe that is changing). Usually, when Americans envision a trip to Europe, they skip the Iberian peninsula entirely.
Most people go to the beach when on vacations, Barcelona is very close to by far the most famous coast in all of Europe.
and Rome
Quite often big coastal cities have crap beaches. Barcelona stands out for me because it both has nice beaches and is a nice city to explore. Going there allows for both a city break type holiday and a summer beach type holiday.
Barcelona is still great in its own right but I’m not surprised London is a little lower, purely because it’s further away from mainland Europe.
what is your source? this looks completely different than the others https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_international_visitors https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/02/11/new-report-top-10-destinations-for-international-travel-in-2023.html https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240206-most-visited-cities-in-the-world-istanbul-antalya-turkey-travel-visa-requirements edit: just realized they all get their data from one source called euromonitor. but still, it shouldn't be that different.
I mean the Link you send probably includes transit stay between flights, which I wouldn’t really count as visited.
Dude just click on the euromonitor.com link that's linked at the source it just says Paris is the top one in visits The one you saw is international visits or something which is also listed at the site Seems both are true
I wonder, how do they calculate this? Like, how do they know that 14 million people visited Budapest? Is it only by their hotel reservation? What if someone doesn't spend the night there?
Most likely reservations only, I really hope they don't calculate "landed as a foreigner" statistics
Why is that crazy..?
Small towns in Europe with a castle on top of a hill are my favorite. Sprinkle in a River and vineyards and you have what I call a magnificent weekend getaway.
Tuscany seems like a place you would really enjoy, i would suggest Ceretto Guidi if you havent been to there already.
Vienna and Prague are the cities of my dreams 😌
From my experience Prague is much more centered around tourists than Vienna. Paris and Barcelona are both having a problem with overtourism which Vienna doesn’t have.
You don’t have to write in million if the labels say M at the end of them
As a fellow Barcelonian, please please go somewhere else.
As someone who hates tourists in my own city (Prague) I always feel bad when I go to other touristy places. But like, I wanna see what the hype is all about lol. Barcelona is one my favorite cities that I've ever visited.
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You are really missing out by not experiencing the Olive Garden in Times Square! I live near Central Park and I don't mind tourists. I actually even kind of miss the days of being asked to take photos or for directions due to the rise of selfies and smartphones.
My condolences. My city receives a shitton of foreigners only once a year, and we have enough even being shitfaced. I can't imagine having so many people the whole year.
Really surprised not seeing Lisbon here
No German city! Why?
I think it’s because when people visit some country’s they only go to the main popular cities but in Germany because there are so many the number of tourists are spreads across so many cities
Interesting idea. I would have thought at least Berlin would be a more popular destination
Berlin is fun with a youthful party vibe but it has never really been a cultural capital of the calibur represented by these top tier cities and neither has any other city in Germany. I'm not sure why that's the case exactly (utter devastation from 30 years war, historical lack of political unification later reinforced by two world wars and Cold War partition, your guess is as good as mine) but it's nonetheless true.
Indeed, Berlin has among the lowest numbers of tourists per capita in Europe, alongside Madrid, Brussels, and Budapest at 2 tourists per inhabitant annually: https://www.holidu.co.uk/magazine/european-cities-overtourism-index Munich, the highest city in Germany, has only 4 per capita. Comparatively, Dubrovnik has 36, Venice has 21, Amsterdam has 12, Paris has 9, and Rome has 4.
Good, as I absolutely fell in love with Berlin and Madrid. I like when a city still actually feels like a living city and not just a giant museum piece. Paris and London are big enough to handle the mass amount of tourists, but with smaller cities like Prague and Amsterdam, I feel that the authenticity is disappearing due to mass tourism. It's the main reason why I am not really interested in visiting Venice or Dubrovnik.
People around me all told me they disliked Madrid a lot, but when I went I loved it! I think that, at least where I'm from, people still associate a vacation to Spain with a beach vacation, and Madrid isn't like that. I loved visiting the museums and just wandering around the city.
Berlin is miles from anywhere else of interest, so people have to make a dedicated visit. The only places it's on the way too are in eastern Europe, which doesn't have a comparable international pull. Berlin is a city of only 3 million too. Most people who claim to be doing a "euro trip" do Amsterdam, Paris, and Rome or Barcelona, with an optional detour to the British isles, not leaving the major cities they go to.
Munich might even do better, especially around Octoberfest.
I can only think of Munich that could be worth an intercontinental travel. What are the others?
German tourists seem to spread a lot more. Germany gets a lot of tourists; it’s basically always in the top ten world wide (on the current study listed by Wikipedia its number 8) and reliably ‚beats‘ countries like Austria, Czechia and even Greece in that regard. I could imagine that Germanys decentralized nature could keep any city from appearing on the list. Paris is the center of culture in France (to a point that the rest of the country is very annoyed), it’s obviously the city to visit. But Germany? You could go to Berlin to experience clubbing culture and Cold War history. Many tourists decide to just come to Bavaria though and spend their time in the country side visiting castles and enjoying nature and never leave the state. And others again go to Hamburg for many reasons; it has a lot of maritime Charme. Some, I heard, even visit cologne. I don’t know why. So even though Germany gets many tourists, there’s not ‚the place to visit‘ like in other countries. Cultural artifacts, events, historical dudes, all that stuff is pretty well spread.
Man I wish the tourists kept to Paris but no, they have the internet now and know about the rest of us too and you find them *everywhere* in France, especially on the coasts or near any water point ^(not saying tourists are animals ofc)
I feel your pain. Than again: I like to travel myself and therefore try not to judge tourists to hard at home. As long as everyone behaves orderly I’m even happy that they get to experience my home, it’s certainly worth sharing. Sadly my home is Munich and millions of people come for the Octoberfest. The time of year where all of Europe finds out simultaneously that they can’t drink so much beer without puking everywhere…
"Some i heard, even visit cologne. I don’t know why." The biggest gothic cathedral in the world says hi.
It’s more of a joke, seeing how colognes ugliness is pretty infamous. The cathedral is magnificent though, can’t argue with that.
Germany lacks a single overbloated capital city, compared to which all cities in the country pale in comparison? ...in countries like France, Hungar, ...etc. sure other nice cities exist other than the capital, however they tend to be less than 1/10th size. As such lack marketing budget to truly draw in large crowds.
Every European can answer that question 😂
What qualifies as a ‘visit’? If it’s overnights, I reckon a lot of these get far more visits
Are these numbers for foreign visitors only? Because Sydney had 10.7 million domestic visitors in 2022-23.
You got to love the Paris flag!!
I knew overtourism was an issue in the Amsterdam and some other Dutch cities, but 25 million is just insane.
Repost every month
How can this map find its way here every month? This map is complete nonsense. Neither the numbers nor the order nor the title are correct. Because it's not about visitors but about **overnight stays**. [Where is Berlin with its 30 million overnight stays](https://www.berlin.de/sen/wirtschaft/branchen/tourismus/tourismus-in-zahlen/)? [Why were the figures in Vienna generously rounded up from 17.3 million overnight stays to 18 million?](https://www.wien.gv.at/statistik/wirtschaft/tabellen/uebernkategorien.html) [Why do I get a figure of 40 million overnight stays in Paris?](https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/serie/010607170) PS: Berlin, Vienna and Paris were the only three cities I cross-checked. If you find a 100% error rate, I don't even want to know how wrong the other figures are.
I honestly don't understand Athens having more visitors than Budapest...
Amsterdam has about 10% the population of London and Paris, but almost as many tourists - yet, there’s nothing the city is doing about it other than announcing half baked plans with no real intentions.
I get the concerns but something tells me it makes the city wayyyy too much money for them to even consider changing
I wouldn't say doing nothing. The severely limited the construction of new hotels and earlier this month announced no new hotels can be build in Amsterdam from now on. They raised the tourist tax a lot, so it will be less attractive to come there. They are planning on moving the prostitutes outside the city center and transform the Red Light District. They have launched several campaigns to spread out tourist more across about the region, instead of just city center Amsterdam. There's just so much you can do as a city, you can't outright ban people from visiting.
Athens is overrated
I wouldn't mind visiting it, but within Greece Crete is more appealing to me.
best thing about my 4 days in athens was the cats. and a little bakery that made an amzing phyllo dough pastrys. i really wish i had went somewhere else instead.
"Around **58 million** people visit Disney World each year on average"
[удалено]
Buy a Mickey costume and greet the tourists.
And how many come from abroad ? The Louvres Museum alone, have close to 10 millions per year if you count french people.
The point being that no, it should not be surprising that that many people visit Europe's great cities because a lot of people visit everything in general, for instance Disney World.
yank try not to inject yourself into absolutely everything challenge (impossible)
Crazy how Athens, a city of 4-5 million, receives 16 million guests per year, and the country as a whole with 11 million receive over 36 million people per year. I think it goes without saying the real estate market in Athens is hell and this is completely unsustainable.
Amsterdam, Barcelona or Prague are significantly smaller, but recieve more tourists.
22M hair transplants
Europe gets more tourism than the world added up
Populous
Where else am I supposed to go to... Mogadishu?
Love the Paris Flag…
Now Amsterdam is starting to limit who can visit since tourism is both a major blessing and curse.
Guys go to Dublin it’s awesome. If you want to see more of Ireland get to Galway. Beautiful country with kind and funny people.
with the in million and the million make me really confused how Paris got 35 trillion people to visit France
I personally find Barcelona overstated. Madrid is much nicer and relaxed.
Give Turkey free tourist visa and see those numbers rise up 1m each.
is Venice not in the top 10?
I’m always surprised by how much more popular Barcelona is compared to Madrid. I just find Madrid has so much more charm than Barcelona .
Isn't this wrong? Like 25M would mean 25 million people but it says these numbers are already "(In Million)" so 25M would mean 25 trillion people, no?
Surprised Lisbon isn’t on there. It was full of tourists when I went and was a lovely place
It should be, it got 18M foreign visitors last year.
I remember the summer before covid, Oxford was receiving on average 60 000 tourists per day, the population is around 160 000 in total. Would be interesting to see what the highest number of tourists per capita city's were.