GERMAN portal Capital.de, an online publication of the famous business monthly magazine, published a list of ten European countries that are most tourism-dependent. Of course, as expected, Croatia was ranked high, but it didn't take the first place, which is reserved for - Georgia.
In the introduction, they stated that countries like Spain and Italy are now trying to save the tourist season. "It's understandable from the economic perspective because the significant part of their GDP depends on tourism turnover," they stated in the article that made the top ten list of European countries most tourism-dependent based on the World Bank's data from 2018.
Italy isn't that much tourism-dependent
Italy ranked number ten with 13% of GDP from tourism, while Austria and Spain shared ninth place (15% of GDP from tourism). It was pointed out that Austria has already opened borders for German tourists, while the situation in Spain is more complicated.
Portugal took seventh place, which was visited by 16 million tourists two years ago, and the GDP share was 18 percent. Greece is on the sixth place (with one-fifth of GDP from tourism), and Cyprus on the fifth.
Croatia hopes that Germans and Austrians will save the tourism season
Finally, we come to the fourth place, which is shared by Croatia and Montenegro.
"Both countries get one-fourth of their GDP from the tourism sector. The Croatian borders are already opened for EU citizens. Croats hope for guests from Austria and Germany, which should save the tourism season," Capital wrote.
Malta ranked second, where tourism makes as much as 27% of GDP.
Georgia is a European country most tourism-dependent
The country that economically depends on tourism the most is very surprising. Georgia took the first place, where tourism makes as much as 31% of GDP.
"Tourism has been an important source of income in this country since the Soviet times," they stated in the article. Georgia has only 3.7 million residents and was visited by more than 7 million tourists in 2018.