Texas tourism generated $199.5 billion in total economic impact in 2024, supported 1.3 million Texas jobs, and produced $9.2 billion in state and local taxes. The same year, 62 million travelers came to Texas from across the United States and around the world, while Texans made more than 67 million overnight trips within the state. These figures show the scale of the travel market behind Texas destinations, including Austin’s live-music economy.
Contents
- Statewide tourism footprint
- Travel spending and visitor mix
- Jobs supported by travel
- Tourism-supported earnings
- Tax receipts from travel
- Music and live-entertainment indicators
Statewide tourism footprint
The Governor’s Office reported 62 million travelers from across the United States and around the world visiting Texas in 2024. Texans also made more than 67 million overnight trips to destinations within Texas during the year. Together, those measures capture both inbound visitation and resident travel inside the state. Governor Abbott Recognizes 2025 Travel And Tourism Week In Texas reports these 2024 figures.
Travel activity was already substantial in 2023. More than 56 million travelers from outside Texas visited the state, and Texans made more than 66 million overnight trips within Texas. The 2023 and 2024 figures use different visitor descriptions: the 2023 measure is travelers from outside Texas, while the 2024 measure is travelers from across the United States and around the world. They should therefore be read as reported measures for each year, not as a precisely comparable growth series. Governor Abbott Recognizes 2025 Travel And Tourism Week In Texas is the source for both years.
The statewide 2024 economic footprint included $199.5 billion in total economic impact, $79.7 billion in travel-related earnings, and $9.2 billion in state and local taxes. The earnings figure is reported in the state’s tourism research, while the economic-impact and tax figures are reported by the Governor’s Office. The Economic Impact of Travel in Texas / 2024 / Prepared by Dean Runyan Associates provides the earnings measure; Governor Abbott Recognizes 2025 Travel And Tourism Week In Texas provides the other two statewide totals.
Travel spending and visitor mix
Direct travel spending to and within Texas was measured in current dollars as follows:
| Year | Direct travel spending |
|---|---|
| 2015 | $70 billion |
| 2019 | $83 billion |
| 2020 | $59 billion |
| 2021 | $77 billion |
| 2022 | $92 billion |
| 2023 | $95 billion |
| 2024 | $97.5 billion |
These figures show the sharp 2020 low and the subsequent rise in reported current-dollar spending. Direct travel spending increased 3.5% from 2023 to 2024. The figures are not inflation-adjusted, so current-dollar comparisons do not isolate changes in travel volume from changes in prices. TRAVEL TEXAS — TRAVEL SPENDING 2015-2024 supplies the annual series and the 2023–2024 change.
Texas residents represented 47% of Texas travel spending in 2024. Visitors from other U.S. states represented 45%, and international visitors represented 8%. This distribution indicates that the Texas travel economy draws heavily on both in-state demand and domestic visitors, with an additional international segment. These percentages describe shares of spending, not shares of visitor counts. TRAVEL TEXAS — TRAVEL SPENDING 2015-2024 reports the 2024 visitor mix.
For a live-music destination such as Austin, the spending mix matters because music-related travel can connect local residents, visitors from elsewhere in the United States, and international travelers with venues, accommodations, food services, transportation, and retail. The supplied spending data quantifies the statewide market; it does not assign a separate statewide spending total specifically to concerts or live music.
Jobs supported by travel
The 2024 Texas tourism research counted 726,750 direct travel-supported jobs across all industries and 1,273,550 jobs when secondary effects were included. The research uses “direct” for jobs connected directly to travel demand and “including secondary effects” for the broader supported employment measure. The Economic Impact of Travel in Texas / 2024 / Prepared by Dean Runyan Associates reports both totals.
Accommodation and food services had 405,580 direct travel-supported jobs and 456,190 jobs including secondary effects. Arts, entertainment and recreation had 160,750 direct jobs and 183,240 including secondary effects. Retail trade had 85,060 direct jobs and 148,220 including secondary effects. Transportation had 57,790 direct jobs and 81,470 including secondary effects.
Professional and business services had 17,560 direct travel-supported jobs and 109,170 including secondary effects. The remaining reported secondary-effect counts included 81,050 jobs in financial activities, 61,510 in education and health services, 13,790 in manufacturing and utilities, 13,580 in construction, 10,990 in information, and 9,860 in natural resources and mining. The research table assigned no direct jobs to those latter categories.
Arts, entertainment and recreation is especially relevant to live music because it includes a wider industry category rather than a music-only count. The category’s 2024 total of 183,240 jobs including secondary effects should not be presented as the number of music jobs. It is a tourism-supported employment measure for the full arts, entertainment and recreation category. All industry figures come from The Economic Impact of Travel in Texas / 2024 / Prepared by Dean Runyan Associates.
Tourism-supported earnings
Across all industries, travel generated $36.694 billion in direct travel-supported earnings and $79.725 billion including secondary effects in Texas in 2024. Accommodation and food services generated $17.507 billion directly and $19.469 billion including secondary effects. Transportation generated $8.528 billion directly and $10.520 billion including secondary effects.
Arts, entertainment and recreation generated $5.691 billion in direct travel-supported earnings and $6.490 billion including secondary effects. Retail trade generated $3.295 billion directly and $7.725 billion including secondary effects. Professional and business services generated $1.672 billion directly and $9.660 billion including secondary effects.
The research also reported secondary travel-supported earnings of $5.392 billion in financial activities, $5.059 billion in education and health services, $1.905 billion in manufacturing and utilities, $1.775 billion in natural resources and mining, $1.533 billion in construction, and $1.426 billion in information. The table assigned no direct earnings to those categories. These earnings figures are from The Economic Impact of Travel in Texas / 2024 / Prepared by Dean Runyan Associates.
The statewide $79.7 billion travel-related earnings headline and the research report’s $79.725 billion including secondary effects describe the same 2024 statewide scale at different precision. The figures should not be added together.
Tax receipts from travel
Direct travel-generated state and local tax receipts reached $9.2 billion in Texas in 2024. The reported increase was $325 million from the previous year, equivalent to a 3.7% increase from 2023 to 2024. Over the longer 2015–2024 period, Texas travel-generated tax receipts grew at a 4.0% annual rate. These measures are reported in The Economic Impact of Travel in Texas / 2024 / Prepared by Dean Runyan Associates.
State tax receipts accounted for $5.4 billion in 2024, or 59% of travel-generated state and local tax revenue. Local tax receipts were $3.8 billion and grew 4.2% from 2023. State and local components are portions of the $9.2 billion total, so they are best read as a split of the same tax measure.
For music destinations, tax receipts provide a public-finance measure of travel activity but do not identify how much tax was generated by concerts, festivals, venues, or music tourism alone. The available 2024 figures are statewide travel totals.
Music and live-entertainment indicators
The Texas Music Office’s Economic Impact Study provides a separate view of music’s statewide economic role. The study was published in 2025 and covers annual impact completed at the end of 2024. It reported that Texas music businesses and music education directly accounted for just under 86,000 permanent jobs, directly generated $4.9 billion in annual earnings, and directly generated just over $12.5 billion in annual economic activity. Economic Impact Study is the source for these figures.
Including ripple effects, the study reported more than 196,000 permanent jobs, $10.5 billion in annual earnings, and $31.7 billion in annual economic activity for the Texas music industry. It also reported approximately $564 million in tax revenue realized by the State of Texas from the measured music-industry impacts. These are study estimates for music businesses and music education, with annual impact covering the period completed at the end of 2024; they are not a count of live-music visitors alone.
Austin’s public funding figures offer a current local indicator tied specifically to live music. In March 2026, the City of Austin reported that the FY26 Austin Live Music Fund supported 399 musicians, promoters, and live music venues with more than $7.14 million. The FY27 Austin Live Music Fund announcement listed $6 million available for activities marketed to visiting and potential tourists. The FY27 guidelines listed $70,000 12-month awards for eligible live music venues with at least a $60,000 operating budget. These figures and their FY26/FY27 labels come from the Austin Live Music Fund page.
The Austin funding amounts are program allocations and awards, not measures of statewide tourism spending or the total economic impact of Austin concerts. Read alongside the statewide travel data, they show how live music fits within a much larger Texas visitor economy while keeping the funding program’s city-level scope explicit.