Data
Tourism contribution to GDP
What you should know about this indicator
- This indicator shows how much tourism directly contributes to a country’s economy.
- It captures the value created when visitors spend money in the country, for example on accommodation, food, transport, entertainment, shopping, and other services.
- This includes not only tourism-specific industries (like hotels and airlines), but also other industries that supply goods and services to visitors. It also includes taxes on the goods and services that tourists buy, minus any subsidies.
- It adds together the value created by these activities, known as gross value added.
- The result is expressed as a share of the country’s total GDP, showing how important tourism is to the overall economy.
- This indicator is used in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 8.9.1) to track progress in promoting sustainable tourism.
Tourism contribution to GDP
Percentage of a country's GDP that comes directly from tourism, including spending by visitors and the industries that serve them.
Source
UN Tourism (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 21, 2026
Next expected update
January 2027
Date range
2008–2023
Unit
%
What you should know about this indicator
- This indicator shows how much tourism directly contributes to a country’s economy.
- It captures the value created when visitors spend money in the country, for example on accommodation, food, transport, entertainment, shopping, and other services.
- This includes not only tourism-specific industries (like hotels and airlines), but also other industries that supply goods and services to visitors. It also includes taxes on the goods and services that tourists buy, minus any subsidies.
- It adds together the value created by these activities, known as gross value added.
- The result is expressed as a share of the country’s total GDP, showing how important tourism is to the overall economy.
- This indicator is used in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 8.9.1) to track progress in promoting sustainable tourism.
Tourism contribution to GDP
Percentage of a country's GDP that comes directly from tourism, including spending by visitors and the industries that serve them.
Source
UN Tourism (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 21, 2026
Next expected update
January 2027
Date range
2008–2023
Unit
%
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Tourism contribution to GDP”, part of the following publication: Bastian Herre and Veronika Samborska (2023) - “Tourism”. Data adapted from UN Tourism. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260205-144556/grapher/tourism-gdp-proportion-of-total-gdp.html [online resource] (archived on February 5, 2026).How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
UN Tourism (2025) – processed by Our World in DataFull citation
UN Tourism (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Tourism contribution to GDP” [dataset]. UN Tourism, “UN Tourism Statistics Database” [original data]. Retrieved February 7, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260205-144556/grapher/tourism-gdp-proportion-of-total-gdp.html (archived on February 5, 2026).