International and domestic border closures and lockdowns continued to have a negative impact on NSW's visitor economy in the second half of 2021.

At the beginning of 2022 however, the economy started to recover, aided by the reopening of national borders to international visitors and state/territory borders to domestic visitors.

These measures led to a quick turnaround of domestic travel demand and a gradual increase of international travel demand in early 2022.

Tourism is vital to the state economy, contributing billions in revenue and supporting jobs throughout the state. In 2021-22, tourism contributed $25.1 billion (Tourism Consumption) to the economy and 174,500 filled jobs.

NSW experienced a slight drop in tourism consumption and filled jobs, down 1.0 per cent (or $266 million) and 2.4 per cent respectively as compared to 2020-21.

In 2021-22 tourism made the following contributions to NSW’s economy:

Employment

Tourism filled 174,500 jobs, of which 116,600 jobs were directly filled and a further 57,700 were filled indirectly.

Consumption

Tourism consumption reached $25.1 billion. Domestic tourism accounted for $23.2 billion and international tourism contributed $2.0 billion.

Gross Value Added (GVA)

Tourism’s GVA was $17.6 billion. Direct GVA accounted for $8.8 billion with indirect GVA accounting for a further $8.8 billion.

Gross State Product (GSP)

Tourism’s GSP contribution was $20.1 billion. The direct GSP contribution was $9.6 billion with an indirect contribution of $10.5 billion.

Tourism businesses (as of June 2022)

There were 117,781 businesses involved in tourism in NSW; 66.9 per cent were located in Sydney and 33.1 per cent in regional NSW.