The town of Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, located in the northeast of Mallorca, a traditional 16th-century Mallorcan village just a few kilometres from Manacor, is the most overcrowded tourist destination in Spain, with a staggering 73.1 tourists per inhabitant. The town leads the tourist overcrowding ranking drawn up by the Holidu rental portal, which also highlights other locations such as Peñíscola in Valencia and Salou in Catalonia. The latter receives almost 1.3 million visitors a year, which corresponds to almost 50 tourists per inhabitant.
The holiday rental portal Holidu has carried out a study to discover the destinations with the highest number of tourists per inhabitant. By analysing the number of arrivals in 2023 compared to the population of the municipality, it has been possible to determine which towns are the most crowded with tourists and which ones should perhaps be avoided this summer.
Leading the way is Sant Llorenç des Cardassar which handles a total of 595,340 arrivals per year.
Most of these visitors, 563,055, are foreign tourists. Also in Mallorca, Capdepera, is visited by 39.3 tourists per inhabitant with a total of 446,320 arrivals per year, of which 381,958 are foreign.
And Mallorca is planning another protest against mass tourism for Sunday, during peak holiday season for British visitors. The protest was announced by the Mallorca Beach Tour group in a post on social media platform X, which called on demonstrators to “occupy our beaches” at 1pm on 11 August.
The date coincides with what Gatwick Airport has predicted will be the busiest day for passengers, with the island’s capital of Palma being one of the airport’s top three short-haul summer destinations alongside Malaga and Barcelona.