SHERIDAN, WYOMING – October 31, 2024 – UN Tourism has achieved a significant milestone in integrating the tourism sector into the broader United Nations agenda with a new dataset on tourism employment. This dataset provides robust evidence to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Addressing a Critical Gap in SDG Monitoring
Tourism plays a crucial role in supporting the UN's 2030 Agenda, explicitly mentioned in Goal 8 on economic growth and decent work, Goal 12 on sustainable consumption and production, and Goal 14 on the sustainable use of oceans.
While global monitoring has primarily focused on tourism's economic contribution through the "Tourism Direct GDP" indicator, particularly concerning the promotion of sustainable tourism that creates jobs (Target 8.9), there has been a critical data gap regarding tourism's role as a global employment generator.
The new dataset, launched in partnership with the International Labour Organization (ILO), addresses this gap, providing comprehensive data on tourism's employment impact and paving the way for a more sustainable future.
Harmonizing Data and Building on Existing Frameworks
The dataset harmonizes and expands on both organizations' official data compilation from countries and is derived from the UN-endorsed Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism.
This new dataset corresponds to the indicator "employed persons in the tourism industries," approved by the United Nations Inter-agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) at its 15th meeting in Oslo, Norway.
This initiative resulted from a proposal by Austria and Spain (co-chairs of the UN Tourism Committee on Statistics), Saudi Arabia (Vice-Chair of the UN Tourism Committee on Statistics), CARICOM, ILO, and UN Tourism as part of the 2025 Comprehensive Review of the Global Indicator Framework for the SDGs.
A Pioneering Effort in Tourism Data
This dataset marks a significant first in tourism data, offering comprehensive insights into tourism employment and key characteristics of individuals employed in the sector:
- By sex: male/female
- By employment status: employees and self-employed
- Across the 10 tourism industries: accommodation, food & beverage serving activities, passenger transport in various forms (air, water, railway, road), transport equipment rental, travel agencies, cultural activities, and sports and recreational activities.
Empowering Stakeholders and Supporting Policymaking
The data is accessible in the Sustainable Development Goals section of the UN Tourism Statistics Database. It can support analytical insights into tourism employment, aiding tourism policies and decision-making related to social development, employment creation, decent work strategies, economic diversification, and poverty reduction.
This data empowers tourism stakeholders and provides valuable insights for ministries of employment, social affairs, economic and industry affairs, worker representatives, the private sector, and academic researchers, integrating tourism into global, national, and local agendas.