Wales Visitor Economy Profile: 2026
Summary of employment, earnings, enterprises, expenditure and output data relating to the tourism and hospitality industries in Wales for 2026.
In this page
Research aims and methodology
This report summarises the latest available data on tourism enterprises, tourism employment and earnings, and tourism-related output (Gross Value Added (GVA)) in Wales. It is based on the Visit Wales definition of tourism and hospitality industries using UK Standard Industrial Classification (SIC). It updates the 2024 profile using the latest tables supplied (covering 2023 to 2025 where available).
Separately, VisitBritain have published an Economic Value of Tourism Report which includes figures for Tourism Gross Domestic product (GDP) and jobs supported in the regions and nations of the UK. For Wales the Tourism GDP was £5.9bn in 2024, supporting 109,000 jobs.
To arrive at these figures, VisitBritain used an estimate of visitor volumes and spend derived from the International Passenger Survey (IPS) and the Great Britain Tourism Survey (GBTS). They include information on both day visits and overnight stays, as well as UK residents travelling abroad (outbound trips). An estimate of spend on travel to the UK with UK-based carriers is added to in-destination spend data from the IPS. The direct sales generated by tourism activity, which are equal to visitor spend, are then run through an Input-Output model to estimate the knock-on effects on the wider economy. This allows VisitBritain to present results on the GDP, employment, and tax impact of Tourism). Therefore, the VisitBritain report covers a wider range of impacts arising from visitor spending: including direct visitor spending, GDP, jobs, and fiscal (tax) impacts in the broader economy. Unlike GVA, GDP includes taxes on products and subsidies, making it a broader measure of economic activity.
This approach provides a more comprehensive view of tourism’s contribution to the economy, particularly in sectors like hospitality, retail, and transport, where product taxes (for example, VAT) form a significant part of final spending. As a result, the values reported in the VisitBritain report are not directly comparable to GVA-based figures in this report. In addition the VisitBritain report includes jobs supported figures which are drawn from a proprietary model; and again, these figures are not comparable to the data in this report, drawn from official employment sources.
Definition of tourism industries
The SIC (Office for National Statistics (ONS)) is used in classifying business establishments by the type of economic activity in which they are engaged. It can be used as a convenient way of classifying industrial activities into a common structure.
For the purposes of this report, Visit Wales uses a set of UK SIC divisions, classes and subclasses to represent the tourism industries in Wales. Full details are provided within this report and tables.
Tourism industry sub-sectors
Visit Wales identifies 7 main tourism sub-sectors in Wales:
- Accommodation for visitors
- Food and beverage service activities
- Sporting and recreational activities
- Cultural activities
- Passenger transport
- Travel agencies and other reservation activities
- Country specific tourism activities
The corresponding UK SIC classes and sub classes are shown in the notes section of the annex.
Hospitality within tourism industries
Hospitality is treated as a subset of the tourism industries and is defined using a selection of SIC subclasses (see the notes in the Annex for details). Unless otherwise stated, totals for tourism industries presented in this report include both hospitality activities and non-hospitality tourism activities.
Technical notes
Minor discrepancies between totals and the sum of component parts may occur due to rounding. Details of data sources and methodology are provided in the data that accompanies this publication.
Data coverage
The report presents data on employment and registered enterprises for tourism industries as a whole, including the hospitality sub-sector, and for other sectors.
Estimates for employment and enterprises are derived using the detailed SIC-based definition outlined above and are therefore considered to provide a relatively precise measure of tourism-related activity in Wales.
GVA and earnings estimates
In contrast to employment and enterprise data, estimates of GVA and earnings are subject to limitations in data availability. Specifically, these data are not available at the more detailed SIC class or subclass level required to fully align with the Visit Wales definition of tourism industries.
As a result, GVA is reported using seven SIC divisions, of which 4 correspond fully to the tourism industries as defined in this report. The remaining divisions are included on the basis that they are predominantly tourism-related, although they also contain some elements of non-tourism activity.
Earnings data are published at SIC division level but are presented here at the broader SIC section level, where this improves the robustness and reliability of the estimates. In practice, 2 SIC sections map directly onto 6 of the SIC divisions used in the GVA analysis, while the remaining division is reported separately. Further details are provided in the notes section of the annex.
Comparability and limitations
The differences in SIC coverage between data sources should be taken into account when interpreting the results. In particular, estimates of GVA and earnings are not directly comparable with those for employment and enterprises, as they are based on broader and less precise industry groupings.
Users should therefore exercise caution when comparing these measures and regard GVA and earnings estimates as indicative of tourism-related economic activity rather than exact equivalents to the more precisely defined employment and enterprise figures.
Main findings
Tourism accounted for approximately 150,000 jobs in Wales in 2024 (11.1% of employment). This represented a decrease from 156,000 (11.5%) in 2023. This was primarily driven by a decline in hospitality jobs (90,000 in 2023 and 83,000 in 2024. However, this was partially offset by growth in accommodation employment (26,000 in 2023 and 29,000 in 2024).
Proportion of part-time employees remains significantly higher in tourism (56.6%) compared with all industries (34.9%).
Tourism employment remains unevenly distributed, with the highest concentrations as an industry percentage being in Isle of Anglesey (20.8%), Conwy (20%) and Pembrokeshire (20%), and the lowest in Wrexham (6.5%) and Blaenau Gwent (6.6%); all local authorities saw year-on-year decreases except Neath Port Talbot (9% in 2024 and 8.7% in 2023) and Torfaen (8.1% in 2024 and 7.7% in 2023).
There were 12,745 tourism enterprises in 2025, representing 11.9% of all enterprises in Wales, with slight growth compared with 2024 (11.8%). The sector is dominated by small businesses, with nearly four-fifths employing fewer than 10 people.
Median earnings in tourism-related sectors remain below the Wales average.
Tourism-related industries generated approximately £3.5 billion in GVA in 2023, equivalent to 4.3% of total Wales GVA.
Employment and employee jobs in 2024
This section uses information from the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) used by the ONS to produce official employment statistics. BRES data includes employees of businesses, and self-employed workers if registered for VAT or Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) schemes. Self-employed people not registered for these, along with HM Forces and Government Supported trainees are excluded.
Total employment in Wales was 1.35 million in 2024. Tourism employment was 150,000 (11.1%), a decrease from 156,000 in 2023 (11.5%). Tourism employment decreased slightly year-on-year, driven primarily by reductions in hospitality (90,000 in 2023; 83,000 in 2024) although accommodation employment increased (26,000 in 2023, 29,000 in 2024).
| Industry | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Industries | 1,334,000 | 1,334,000 | 1,354,000 | 1,349,000 |
| Tourism | 143,000 | 159,000 | 156,000 | 150,000 |
| % of employment in Wales | 10.7% | 11.9% | 11.5% | 11.1% |
| Accommodation | 23,000 | 26,000 | 26,000 | 29,000 |
| % of employment in Wales | 1.7% | 1.9% | 1.9% | 2.1% |
| Hospitality | 82,000 | 91,000 | 90,000 | 83,000 |
| % of employment in Wales | 6.1% | 6.8% | 6.6% | 6.2% |
| Other | 38,000 | 42,000 | 39,000 | 38,000 |
| % of employment in Wales | 2.8% | 3.1% | 2.9% | 2.8% |
Source: Business Register and Employment Survey
Tourism employment is unevenly distributed geographically, with the highest concentrations in Isle of Anglesey, Conwy and Pembrokeshire (20.0 to 20.8 industry percentage), and the lowest in Wrexham and Blaenau Gwent (6.5% and 6.6% respectively).
| Local authority | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wales - All Industries | 1,334,000 | 1,334,000 | 1,354,000 | 1,349,000 |
| Wales - Tourism | 143,000 | 159,000 | 156,000 | 150,000 |
| Blaenau Gwent | 1,750 | 2,000 | 2,000 | 1,250 |
| Bridgend | 5,000 | 6,000 | 6,000 | 6,000 |
| Caerphilly | 4,500 | 4,500 | 5,000 | 4,500 |
| Cardiff | 23,000 | 26,000 | 25,000 | 23,000 |
| Carmarthenshire | 7,000 | 8,000 | 7,000 | 7,000 |
| Ceredigion | 4,000 | 5,000 | 4,500 | 4,500 |
| Conwy | 8,000 | 9,000 | 9,000 | 9,000 |
| Denbighshire | 5,000 | 6,000 | 5,000 | 5,000 |
| Flintshire | 7,000 | 6,000 | 6,000 | 6,000 |
| Gwynedd | 9,000 | 11,000 | 11,000 | 11,000 |
| Isle of Anglesey | 4,500 | 5,000 | 5,000 | 5,000 |
| Merthyr Tydfil | 2,250 | 2,250 | 2,500 | 2,500 |
| Monmouthshire | 4,500 | 5,000 | 5,000 | 4,500 |
| Neath Port Talbot | 4,000 | 4,500 | 4,500 | 4,500 |
| Newport | 7,000 | 7,000 | 7,000 | 7,000 |
| Pembrokeshire | 9,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 |
| Powys | 7,000 | 7,000 | 8,000 | 8,000 |
| Rhondda Cynon Taf | 7,000 | 8,000 | 8,000 | 7,000 |
| Swansea | 11,000 | 13,000 | 13,000 | 12,000 |
| Torfaen | 3,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 |
| Vale of Glamorgan | 6,000 | 7,000 | 7,000 | 6,000 |
| Wrexham | 4,000 | 4,500 | 4,000 | 4,000 |
Source: Business Register and Employment Survey
Earnings in 2025
This section uses data from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings which samples employee jobs from HMRC PAYE records. Data is collected annually relating to the financial year ending in April of the reporting year. Please note 2025 earnings data are provisional.
Median hourly pay in Wales across all industries rose to £16.61 in 2025. Tourism-related sectors remained below this average, with accommodation and food services at £12.47 and arts, entertainment and recreation at £14.18.
Enterprises in 2025
This section uses information from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) (ONS), as of March each year. An enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units (generally based on VAT and/or PAYE records) which has a certain degree of autonomy within a group of legal units under common ownership.
The IDBR and data only covers those businesses registered for VAT or PAYE, so sole traders below the VAT threshold will not be included (unless they have registered voluntarily).
The total number of enterprises in Wales declined slightly to 106,955 in 2025 (107,185 in 2024). In contrast, tourism enterprises increased modestly to 12,745 (12,615 in 2024). Tourism enterprise shares as against all industries were highest in Gwynedd and Conwy and lowest in Torfaen and Wrexham.
Tourism enterprises (12,745) accounted for 11.9% of registered enterprises in Wales in 2025. Hospitality accounted for the largest share of enterprises (60%), followed by Other (non-accommodation 32%) and finally accommodation (15%). Four in five (79%) tourism enterprises have fewer than 10 employees.
Regionally, North Wales had the highest share of enterprise with 13.2%, followed by the South West (12.4%), Mid Wales (10.2%) and South East (11.5%).
Users are reminded that the IDBR only covers businesses which are registered for VAT or PAYE. It is possible that tourism and/or hospitality has a higher than average proportion of sole traders which are not VAT registered who would not appear in these figures. Other employment data sources such as the Annual Population Survey captures self-employed workers and businesses which are not PAYE or VAT registered.
Gross Value Added (GVA)
Please note 2023 GVA data is provisional. Users are reminded to note the difference between Tourism Industry definitions used for GVA when viewing these figures alongside those for employment and enterprises.
Tourism-related SIC divisions contributed £3.5 billion to the Welsh economy in 2023. The largest contributions came from food and beverage services (£1.7 billion) and accommodation (£0.9 billion).
Contact details
Report authors: Phil Nelson
Views expressed in this report are those of the researchers and not necessarily those of the Welsh Government.
For further information please contact:
Tourism Research
Visit Wales
Welsh Government
Email: tourismresearch@gov.wales
Social research number: 93/2026
Digital ISBN: 978-1-80853-464-5
