15 million tourists in one year. Those are the number of visitors Barcelona received in 2024, according to the latest available data, which confirms that Barcelona receives 10 times the population in visitors, making it the most overcrowded tourist city in the world.
916 tourists per 100 inhabitants
This statement comes from a study by Nomad eSIM, which analyzes data on affluence, visitor density and local perception. According to this study, Barcelona is the most overcrowded tourist city in the world, with an estimated 201,722 tourists per square kilometer.
This world record puts us ahead of cities like Rome, Paris or New York, or areas like Cancun in Mexico with an alarming figure: in Barcelona there are 916 tourists for every 100 residents, that is, for every group of 10 locals, there are more than 90 people who are passing through the city day in and day out.
It is easy to understand: if the city has 1.5 million inhabitants, those 15 million represent approximately ten times the population of the city in tourists.
More tourists than Australia and Brazil combined
To give you an idea of the gap of tourists that Barcelona receives a fact: Barcelona alone receives in a year more tourists than countries like Brazil and Australia combined. Or almost as many as Paris (19 million), three times as many as Venice (5.5 million) and only half as many as London (30 million), a city of 9 million inhabitants.
More comparisons can be made: Barcelona receives more tourists than there are inhabitants in Portugal (10.2 million), Bolivia (12 million) or Belgium (11.8 million) or hosts, alone, almost 20% of all tourism in Spain.
Is it possible to receive more tourists?
These data are only confirmation of the impact on the city: according to a VisitMob study, 61% of residents believe that the city can no longer welcome more tourists. And 36% say they have changed their way of getting around because of saturation. If not, just ask the residents of Las Ramblas how many times a year they walk along it.
In addition, the announcement of the expansion of El Prat airport generates suspicions in some sectors, since it would obviously cause an even greater increase in the number of tourists, with the resulting problems in housing, etc.
For all these reasons, Barcelona finds itself in a dilemma: to continue growing and receiving more tourists, despite the limit it seems to have reached, or to look for ways to control this growth.