Across the 42 economies tracked in the WTTC Economic Impact Research 2025, travel and tourism's share of GDP ranges from 21.3% in Portugal down to 3.9% in South Korea. The share tells you how tourism-reliant an economy is; the absolute dollar figure tells you how large its tourism sector is — and the two rarely point at the same country. Portugal tops the share ranking, but the United States runs the biggest tourism economy in the world at roughly $2.6 trillion, or 8.8% of its own vast GDP.
Every number below traces to the WTTC EIR 2025 release (2024 actuals, constant prices). This is the same verified ledger behind DataGreat's tourism GDP hub, where you can open any country for the full breakdown.
Tourism's share of GDP, ranked (2024)
| # | Country | T&T share of GDP | T&T GDP contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Portugal | 21.3% | $65.9 bn |
| 2 | Greece | 19.4% | $48.8 bn |
| 3 | Spain | 15.6% | $270.2 bn |
| 4 | Qatar | 15.1% | $33.3 bn |
| 5 | Mexico | 14.9% | $274.4 bn |
| 6 | UAE | 13.0% | $70.1 bn |
| 7 | Thailand | 12.8% | $67.3 bn |
| 8 | Morocco | 12.2% | $18.7 bn |
| 9 | Türkiye | 11.8% | $153.5 bn |
| 10 | Germany | 11.2% | $525.5 bn |
| 11 | Austria | 11.0% | $57.5 bn |
| 12 | Australia | 10.9% | $195.9 bn |
| 13 | Italy | 10.5% | $248.3 bn |
| 14 | Singapore | 10.1% | $54.6 bn |
| 15 | Malaysia | 10.1% | $42.7 bn |
| 16 | United Kingdom | 10.0% | $367.2 bn |
| 17 | Saudi Arabia | 9.9% | $107.5 bn |
| 18 | Netherlands | 9.8% | $121.0 bn |
| 19 | France | 9.1% | $289.2 bn |
| 20 | China | 9.0% | $1,600 bn |
| 21 | United States | 8.8% | $2,600 bn |
| 22 | Egypt | 8.5% | $30.3 bn |
| 23 | South Africa | 8.4% | $33.8 bn |
| 24 | Brazil | 7.7% | $166.9 bn |
| 25 | Japan | 7.7% | $310.5 bn |
| 26 | Switzerland | 7.2% | $67.2 bn |
| 27 | Vietnam | 7.0% | $31.8 bn |
| 28 | India | 6.6% | $249.3 bn |
| 29 | Argentina | 5.8% | $35.9 bn |
| 30 | Canada | 5.6% | $123.1 bn |
| 31 | Indonesia | 5.1% | $71.7 bn |
| 32 | South Korea | 3.9% | $73.0 bn |
A handful of WTTC-covered economies (e.g. Bahrain, Kenya, New Zealand, Peru, Colombia, Ireland, Chile, Sweden, Oman, Poland) publish a GDP-share figure but not yet a full-factsheet dollar contribution; they are covered on the country hubs and omitted from the dollar column here rather than shown as zero.
Why share and size diverge
The two most tourism-dependent large economies in the list — Portugal (21.3%) and Greece (19.4%) — are mid-sized by absolute output. Their tourism sectors are worth $65.9 bn and $48.8 bn respectively. Compare that to the United States: tourism is a smaller slice of its economy (8.8%), yet that slice is worth about $2.6 trillion — roughly 40× Portugal's entire tourism economy.
This is the single most misread statistic in tourism policy. A country can have a modest GDP share and still be the world's dominant tourism market by dollars (the US, China, Germany, Japan), while a country with a headline-grabbing share is running a comparatively small operation in absolute terms. For investment sizing you want the dollar figure; for resilience and concentration risk you want the share. We break the dependency angle down separately in the world's most tourism-dependent economies.
How this is measured
WTTC's "total contribution" of travel and tourism captures direct spending (hotels, airlines, attractions), indirect effects (the supply chain feeding those businesses) and induced effects (spending by tourism-sector employees). It is expressed against national GDP as published in the IMF World Economic Outlook and World Bank national accounts, which is why the denominator is comparable across the 42 markets.
Two caveats worth stating plainly:
- These are 2024 actuals. WTTC EIR refreshes annually in Q2, so the 2025 forecast figures move but the 2024 base shown here is fixed.
- "Tourism GDP" is a contribution measure, not a standalone sector line in national accounts. Different bodies (UN Tourism, national statistics offices) publish narrower "direct" measures that will read lower than WTTC's total-contribution figure. Always check which definition a number uses before comparing two sources.
FAQ
Which country has the highest tourism share of GDP? Among the 42 economies in WTTC EIR 2025, Portugal has the highest, with travel and tourism contributing 21.3% of GDP in 2024 — about $65.9 billion. Greece is second at 19.4%.
Which country has the largest tourism economy by dollars? The United States, where travel and tourism contributed roughly $2.6 trillion in 2024 — 8.8% of US GDP. China is second at about $1.6 trillion.
What is the average tourism share of GDP? Across this WTTC set, tourism's share of GDP clusters around 8–11% for most advanced and emerging economies, with tourism-reliant Mediterranean and Gulf states running well above and large diversified economies (South Korea, Indonesia, Canada) running below.
Want the full per-country breakdown — GDP, jobs, arrivals, investment and 10-year forecasts, every figure source-anchored to WTTC EIR 2025? Open any market on the DataGreat tourism GDP hub, or see how a verified report is built.
