Atlanta & Local Affairs
Georgia’s visitor economy supported an estimated 473,837 direct, indirect and induced jobs in 2025, according to a state-commissioned economic-impact study released by the Georgia Department of Economic Development.
The state said 175.6 million domestic and international visitors spent $46.2 billion in Georgia during 2025. That spending generated an estimated $84.1 billion in statewide economic impact and $5.3 billion in state and local tax revenue.
The jobs figure is an economic-impact estimate, not a payroll count. It includes direct tourism jobs as well as indirect and induced employment supported by visitor spending, so it should not be compared one-for-one with Bureau of Labor Statistics industry employment.
Tourism’s statewide labor footprint
GDEcD said tourism-supported employment rose to 473,837 jobs, equal to roughly one in every 15 Georgia jobs under the study’s methodology.
The analysis was conducted by Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company, and commissioned by GDEcD. The state uses the study to estimate the wider economic footprint of visitor spending across lodging, restaurants, transportation, attractions and other businesses.
The study does not mean Georgia added 473,837 tourism jobs during 2025. It estimates the number of jobs supported by visitor activity across the economy.
That distinction is important for employers and workers. A direct hotel or restaurant job is different from a supplier job supported by tourism demand, and both differ from an induced job supported by spending from workers whose income comes from the visitor economy.
What the record year says—and what it does not
Georgia reported a fourth consecutive annual tourism record. Visitor spending exceeded the prior year’s record by more than 2%, and the state ranked fifth nationally for domestic overnight visitation for the sixth consecutive year.
The statewide figures do not provide an Atlanta-specific employment estimate in the release. Metro Atlanta is a major gateway and destination within Georgia’s visitor economy, but JobGetr should not infer an Atlanta share from the statewide total without county or metro-level source data.
The state also said Georgia’s visitor economy has grown more than 15% since 2019, with visitor spending up 22% over that period. Those figures describe spending and economic impact, not a direct measure of hiring velocity in 2026.
What to watch
The next useful layer is county-level tourism impact data, especially for Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Clayton and other metro Atlanta counties. That would show how much of the statewide visitor-economy workforce is concentrated in the Atlanta region and which local industries carry the largest employment exposure.
Source
- Georgia Department of Economic Development, “Georgia Breaks Tourism Records Four Years Straight,” September 30, 2026. https://georgia.org/press-releases/2026/georgia-breaks-tourism-records-four-years-straight
Featured photo: Atlanta skyline. Representative image of Georgia’s visitor economy; the statewide study does not provide an Atlanta-specific jobs estimate in the release. Photo: Lance Asper via Unsplash (Unsplash License).
