Rhode Island Tourism Industry

Overview Statistics

Rhode Island hosted 24.8 million visitors in 2017, including 7.8 million overnight visitors.
The total traveler economy reached $6.5 billion in 2017, including visitor spending, tourism-related construction, and supporting industries.
This represents growth of 5.4% in 2017 and cumulative growth of 23% over the past five years.
This supported 83,913 jobs, including direct, indirect and induced impacts. This equates to one job for every 293 visitors.
13.1% of all jobs in the state (1-in-7.6) are sustained by the travel economy.
Total traveler economy employment increased 4.3% from 2015 to 2017. This compares to just 1.9% employment growth for the total Rhode Island economy.
Tourism in Rhode Island generated $775 million in state and local taxes in 2017. Each household in Rhode Island would need to pay $1,890 in additional taxes in the absence of the visitor economy.