Tourism share of employment
Employment in tourism as a percentage of total employment, as each country reports it to the OECD: for most countries, people employed or jobs in the tourism industries (accommodation, food and beverage serving, passenger transport, travel agencies and others); for some, the employment that serves visitors directly.
The OECD labels the measure direct, but most countries count everyone working in the tourism industries, including work that serves residents, so the share is usually well above tourism_direct_gdp_share (Spain 2023: 13.2% against 6.0%). Definitions differ between countries and break within some (flagged: Colombia 2015, Denmark 2019, Japan 2014), so compare countries with care.
Key facts
- Tourism share of employment in the United States was 4% in 2023, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
- Malta had the highest tourism share of employment of 42 countries in 2022, at 16.9%, and South Korea the lowest, at 1.5%. Source: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
- Published for 48 places, with figures from 2008 to 2025.
Rankings
Countries by tourism share of employment, 2022
Places with data
Countries
- United States
- Indonesia
- Brazil
- Mexico
- Japan
- Türkiye
- Germany
- United Kingdom
- France
- South Africa
- Peru
- Denmark
- Finland
- Slovenia
- Greece
- Argentina
Use this data in your AI agent
Invokely serves this figure to AI assistants through MCP and to code through a REST API, with the source and citation attached. Ask your assistant:
Which places have the highest tourism share of employment? Use official data and cite it.
rank_places {"indicator":"tourism_employment_share","level":"country"}
GET https://invokely.ai/api/v1/rank?indicator=tourism_employment_share&level=country