Business of Tourism : Extent of tourism in numbers - the T/P Ratio

Overtourism is the current rage in the travel, tourism, government and social circles. There are cities being overwhelmed by visitors in particular months and empty in others; there are protests and water being squirted over tourists ( which is sad because tourists cant be blamed for local policies that enable them to arrive!).

That said , I thought it would be interesting to gauge from numbers exactly how bad is the problem of over tourism. I compiled a few numbers (see table) from various sources - the Ministry of Tourism India (2022 data) , UN tourism site, Euromonitor, Statista, ET, TOI, The Guardian, CNN and a few others). 

The "T/P ratio" is essentially simply Tourist- to- Population ratio. Just my way to grasp the scale of the issue. 

Not surprisingly, western Europe has some T/P  ratios that could be called alarming. The point here is that not all these millions are leisure travelers. Quite a large component will be business arrivals too. Still, the numbers are huge in already huge cities. Istanbul, for example, gets 25% more visitors thru its gates in a year than its resident population. London, nearly 2x, and Barcelona, the current hot topic, 37 % more than its population. These are serious enough "overruns" to stress out people, resources like water and sanitation, as well as transport. ( populations are measured differently in different cities - some take in only metro city areas; some the wider metro area including suburbs, but the core purpose of the analysis remains good). 

numbers in millions.
Sources: Euromonitor, Statista,
WTTO, UN Tourism Dashboard, media reports,
TOI, ET, Guardian, CNN

India : big on population, low on tourism

Ironically, in the second half of the table, you can see how under-developed India is on the tourism scale. India gets less than 1.7% of global tourism, and its FTA (Foreign Tourist Arrivals) are about 9 mn. Basically, the whole, huge subcontinent of India , one of the oldest and most diverse cultures on Earth, gets less tourist arrivals than any one of the cities in the table! 

India has tremendous potential for tourism - both domestic and international. There are some clear concerns, but they pertain to infrastructure, costs, general perception of safety, and that India is destination by itself requiring much time and planning). 

There's essentially no concern on overtourism for India! As it is, Indian cities are densely populated. A few million more may not even be noticed! 

Business of Tourism: Rising costs doesn't deter Indian tourists to Europe

Further to the discussion on if entry fees are an effective barrier to slow or stop tourism, take a look at the numbers from India to Europe, the most preferred destination for Indians.  

Source: schnegenvisainfo.com / TOI/ HT/ 
https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/

Take a look at the data for Schengen visas issued to Indian citizens (see table 1).  

There are three interesting data points here.

First, there was a smart recovery from the low of the pandemic years (2020-2022) and it really shot up post 2022.  

Second, in the same duration. the Schengen visa fee rose from Euro 60 to 80 per head and is today, in 2024, euro 90. Every three years or so, the EU revises this fee. The latest revision was effective June 2024. 

Third, check out the rejections. There was a smart spike in the rejection % as well. India now is the third most rejected country from European visas. There is no refund for rejections (I think that's unform for all countries, even India). The key data point is- how much Indians lost to rejections. In 2023, it was about Euro 12 mn  against about Euro 10mn in 2022. 

So, what does it look like, in money terms? See table 2 below. 

Table 2: 

Source: schnegenvisainfo.com / TOI/ HT/ 
https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/

So, this clearly shows the price inelasticity for Schengen visas in India. Expect this price to cross Euro 100 by 2026, possibly. The point is, increasing price barriers - visa fees / hotel taxes / entry fees/ fines only cause the demand table to readjust to a higher cost level and go on as usual. Dips if any, will be limited and short. 

So how do you slow down over tourism? I believe more long-term damage to image and attractiveness of a destination will be done by singling out genuine tourists with embarrassment, financial losses, or violence (actual or threatened), like we saw in Barcelona. The latent hostility is even more concerning. Many people will pause a bit, and wonder.  Should I spend my money in a place that's clearly hostile? Or at the very least, disdainfully tolerates me for my money? 

Tricky, knotty issue, it sure is!