Tourist Saturation Index, Avoid tourist areas easily!
By Nick November 26, 2006
The online Tourist Saturation Index (TSI) comes from my favorite online travel website: Bernard Cloutier’s berclo.net. Don’t be distracted by the site’s 1999 design, because it is home to the best budget travel/backpacking information available. The guy has been to virtually every country, so he earned the right to be regarded as an authority in the Budget Globetrotter’s world.
So back to the TSI, the TSI is, as the title states, a list of the most tourist saturated countries in the world. They are ranked by comparing the number of tourists to the number of locals. He also takes into account the “exposure to tourists” (I’m assuming it deals with land area) and the area’s economic dependency on tourism.
The TSI calculates the saturation by country, and also by region. Can you guess what the most saturated area in the world is?
Top 5 Tourist Saturated regions
| Rank | Region | Tourist Saturation Index |
| 1 | Carribbean | 0.044 |
| 2 | Southern Europe | 0.029 |
| 3 | Western Europe | 0.014 |
| 4 | Northern Europe | 0.010 |
| 5 | Oceania | 0.00729 |
This tourist saturation really is not all that surprising, especially when you look at the tourist saturation by country. The Carribbean takes the first four spots!
Top 5 Tourist Saturated Countries
| Rank | Region | Tourist Saturation Index |
| 1 | British Virgin Islands | 11.17944 |
| 2 | Turks Caicos | 5.56989 |
| 3 | Cayman Islands | 5.43011 |
| 4 | Aruba | 4.19026 |
| 5 | San Marino | 4.09231 |
The Carribbean countries are pretty prevalent at the top of the saturation index. Here are some other indexes that may be of interest.
- United States: 0.00146 — We are definitely saved by the enormous area of our country. Take away Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, and the Great Plains and I think our Tourist density would skyrocket.
- Austria: 0.13394 – Somewhat surprising. Seemed a bit high to me.
- United Arab Emirates (UAE): 0.01248 — I think they’re looking to boost that number to about 4.8800 with all the Dubai tourist attractions they’re pumping money into. (Dubailand, Indoor Snow ski, man-made islands, largest building in the world, etc.)
So hats off to Bernard Cloutier for his analysis of tourist areas around the world. Definitely check out the rest of his site, as it has the best free content around.
[tags]tourism, travel[/tags]
Topics: Budget Travel Tips |
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