Pennsylvania recorded 201.6 million visitors in 2024, and those visitors spent $49.855 billion across the state. Food and beverages accounted for $11.090 billion of that spending, while lodging accounted for $6.604 billion. Together, the figures show the scale of hospitality demand behind Pennsylvania’s restaurants, hotels and visitor destinations.
Contents
- Visitor volume and spending
- Food and beverage demand
- Lodging activity
- Hospitality jobs and employment
- Sales, GDP and personal income
- Taxes, investment and employment outlook
Visitor volume and spending
Pennsylvania’s 2024 visitor total included 130.6 million day visitors and 71.0 million overnight visitors. Day trips therefore represented the larger visitor group by volume, while overnight travel generated substantially more spending per person. These figures come from Economic Impact of Visitors in Pennsylvania 2024.
| Visitor measure | 2024 Pennsylvania figure |
|---|---|
| Total visitors | 201.6 million |
| Day visitors | 130.6 million |
| Overnight visitors | 71.0 million |
| Total visitor spending | $49.855 billion |
| Average spending per visitor | $247 |
Total visitor spending was $49.855 billion. Day visitors spent $19.495 billion, compared with $30.360 billion from overnight visitors. The average was $247 per visitor overall, but the two groups had different spending profiles: average day-visitor spending was $149, while average overnight-visitor spending was $428.
That difference matters for hospitality businesses. A day visitor may generate a restaurant, café or attraction purchase without a hotel booking. An overnight visitor has more opportunities to spend across meals, accommodations and other visitor-related services. The 2024 averages describe Pennsylvania as a market where both high-volume day travel and higher-value overnight travel contribute to demand.
Visitor spending also extended beyond individual purchases. The Pennsylvania visitor economy generated $83.949 billion in total business sales in 2024. Direct visitor-economy business sales were $52.528 billion, with another $14.893 billion in indirect sales and $16.527 billion in induced sales. These categories capture the wider business activity associated with visitor demand, rather than treating the initial visitor purchase as the full economic effect.
Food and beverage demand
Food and beverage was one of Pennsylvania’s largest visitor spending categories in 2024. Visitors spent $11.090 billion on food and beverages, representing 22% of total Pennsylvania visitor spending. Visitor-related food-and-beverage spending increased 5.5% in 2024.
The business impact was broader than the visitor receipts alone. Visitor-related food-and-beverage business sales totaled $12.760 billion. Indirect visitor-related food-and-beverage business sales added $553 million, and induced sales added $1.118 billion. The same 2024 analysis measured $5.504 billion in visitor-related food-and-beverage GDP and $3.792 billion in visitor-related food-and-beverage personal income.
For dining businesses, the distinction between visitor spending and related business activity is useful. The $11.090 billion figure describes direct visitor purchases of food and beverages. The $12.760 billion business-sales figure reflects the broader sales activity associated with that visitor demand. Indirect and induced amounts describe additional effects through connected businesses and household spending; they are not additional restaurant receipts to be added to the original visitor-spending figure.
Food and beverage also had a major employment connection. Visitor-supported food-and-beverage employment totaled 132,663 jobs in Pennsylvania in 2024. Visitor spending supported 26% of all Pennsylvania food-and-beverage jobs, according to Economic Impact of Visitors in Pennsylvania 2024. That share indicates that visitor demand was a substantial component of employment in the sector, alongside local and resident demand.
The data is statewide, so it does not identify which individual cities, restaurants or dining formats received the most spending. It does, however, provide a statewide measure of the market that Pennsylvania dining guides serve: a food-and-beverage category tied to $11.090 billion in visitor purchases and more than 132,000 visitor-supported jobs.
Lodging activity
Visitors spent $6.604 billion on lodging in Pennsylvania in 2024. Lodging represented 13% of total visitor spending, and visitor lodging spending increased 2.4% during the year. Overnight visitors, who averaged $428 in spending compared with $149 for day visitors, are the visitor group most directly associated with this lodging demand.
Visitor-related lodging business sales totaled $5.755 billion. Of that amount, direct visitor-related lodging business sales totaled $5.720 billion. Visitor-related lodging GDP reached $3.617 billion, including $3.595 billion in direct lodging GDP.
The lodging sector’s employment and income measures were also substantial. Visitor-related lodging employment totaled 57,767 jobs, including 57,394 direct visitor-related lodging jobs. Visitor-related lodging personal income totaled $2.523 billion, of which $2.503 billion was direct visitor-related lodging personal income.
| Lodging measure | 2024 Pennsylvania figure |
|---|---|
| Visitor lodging spending | $6.604 billion |
| Share of visitor spending | 13% |
| Lodging spending growth | 2.4% |
| Visitor-related lodging sales | $5.755 billion |
| Visitor-related lodging GDP | $3.617 billion |
| Visitor-related lodging employment | 57,767 jobs |
| Visitor-related lodging personal income | $2.523 billion |
The direct and total lodging figures are close because most of the measured lodging effect was direct. The report’s categories should still be kept separate: direct sales, GDP, employment and personal income are not interchangeable measures, and total visitor-related values include more than the direct component.
Hospitality jobs and employment
Visitor activity supported 514,261 total jobs in Pennsylvania in 2024. Direct visitor activity supported 340,270 jobs. Indirect visitor activity supported 71,917 jobs, and induced visitor activity supported 102,074 jobs. In total, visitor-supported employment equaled 6.3% of all Pennsylvania jobs.
Food and lodging were important parts of that employment base, but visitor-supported work also extended into recreation, retail and business services. Visitor-supported recreation and entertainment employment totaled 61,492 jobs. Visitor-supported retail-trade employment totaled 45,748 jobs, while visitor-supported business-services employment totaled 32,601 jobs.
Visitor spending supported 30% of Pennsylvania recreation employment in 2024. The corresponding share for food-and-beverage jobs was 26%. These are sector employment shares, not estimates of the percentage of each worker’s time spent serving visitors. They show how much of each sector’s employment was supported by visitor spending under the report’s economic-impact methodology.
The direct, indirect and induced categories help describe how the jobs total is distributed. Direct jobs are tied to businesses that serve visitors. Indirect jobs arise through supplier and related business activity. Induced jobs reflect household spending associated with income generated by the visitor economy. The categories are presented as part of the statewide visitor-impact analysis and should not be treated as separate, non-overlapping industries in a restaurant or hotel staffing count.
Sales, GDP and personal income
The Pennsylvania visitor economy generated $40.475 billion in total GDP in 2024 and represented 4.0% of the state economy. Visitor activity generated $26.489 billion in total personal income. These measures indicate that the visitor economy was significant at the statewide level, not only within individual hospitality businesses.
| Economic-impact measure | 2024 Pennsylvania figure |
|---|---|
| Total visitor-economy business sales | $83.949 billion |
| Direct business sales | $52.528 billion |
| Indirect business sales | $14.893 billion |
| Induced business sales | $16.527 billion |
| Total visitor-economy GDP | $40.475 billion |
| Share of state economy | 4.0% |
| Total personal income | $26.489 billion |
The personal-income total included $15.151 billion from direct visitor activity, $5.284 billion from indirect activity and $6.054 billion from induced activity. As with business sales, these components describe different channels of economic impact rather than three alternative estimates of the same direct payroll.
The sector detail places dining and lodging inside this larger picture. Visitor-related food-and-beverage GDP totaled $5.504 billion, and visitor-related lodging GDP totaled $3.617 billion. Food-and-beverage personal income totaled $3.792 billion, while lodging personal income totaled $2.523 billion. These category figures are subsets of the broader statewide visitor economy and use the 2024 measurement period.
Taxes, investment and employment outlook
Visitor activity generated $10.516 billion in total government tax revenue in Pennsylvania in 2024. Federal taxes accounted for $5.500 billion, while state and local taxes totaled $5.017 billion. Within the state and local total, state taxes were $2.699 billion and local taxes were $2.318 billion. Local lodging taxes contributed $259 million.
Tourism-related capital investment totaled $2.064 billion in 2024. That included $1.213 billion in machinery and equipment investment and $851 million in construction investment. These figures describe tourism-related investment statewide during 2024; they do not identify individual projects or forecast future construction.
The separate Pennsylvania Industry Employment 2014-2024 Long-Term Projections reported 486,230 projected jobs in Accommodation & Food Services for 2024 across its 2014–2024 projection horizon. It also projected 365,510 jobs in Restaurants & Other Eating Places for 2024. These are projections associated with the long-term employment series, not a replacement for the visitor-supported employment counts in the 2024 visitor-impact report. Pennsylvania Industry Employment 2014-2024 Long-Term Projections
The visitor-impact figures come from Economic Impact of Visitors in Pennsylvania 2024, whose title identifies the report as preliminary. The report covers Pennsylvania statewide measures for 2024, while the employment projections use the distinct 2014–2024 projection horizon. Keeping those scopes and measurement types separate is essential when using the statistics to understand dining, lodging and other hospitality demand.