Tourism direct GDP (2024) | Tourism direct employment (2024) | Travel exports (2025) |
|---|---|---|
3.7–4.8% of total GDP (3.7–4.7% in 2023) | 3.9% of total employment (up 0.6 percentage points since 2023) | 12% of total service exports (equal to share in 2024) |
OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2026
National tourism strategy: The Long-Term Outlook for Estonian Tourism 2025-2035
National tourism administration: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications
National tourism budget: EUR 16.6 Million for 2025 and EUR 19.7 million for 2026)
Key tourism policy priorities and actions:
Simplify administrative requirements for businesses, including tourism - Removing outdated or unnecessary regulations and reducing state-level intervention, where possible, for accommodation and catering providers, travel companies, and tourist information centres.
Creating a data driven tourism sector - Improving the quality, accessibility, and use of tourism data across the ecosystem, guided by an internal work plan for annual activities (to be developed in 2026) to support data-driven tourism.
Shifting to sustainable models of tourism - Fostering innovation, increasing digital and data capabilities, reducing the sector’s environmental footprint, supporting the adoption of sustainability certifications, and integrating sustainability principles into all processes.
Tourism is an important contributor to the Estonian economy, with travel responsible for 12% of all service exports in 2024 and 2025. According to the Ministry’s estimations, tourism directly accounted for between 3.7–4.8% of Estonia’s GDP in 2024, compared to 3.7–4.7% in 2023 (and 5.4% in 2019). Tourism directly accounted for 3.9% of total employment in 2024 (below the 2019 level of 4.4%).
In 2025, Estonia welcomed 2.8 million international overnight visitors. The number is growing annually but is still 16% below 2019 levels due to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The top three international source markets in 2025 were Finland (36%), Latvia (16%) and Germany (7%).
Domestic travel had largely recovered by 2024, but declined in 2025: Estonia recorded 3.48 million domestic overnight trips in 2024 and 3.05 million in 2025, 12.3% less than in 2024 and below 2019 (3.49 million). The total number of nights spent on domestic trips across all accommodation types (including both rented and non‑rented accommodation) fell to 6.25 million in 2025, 14% less than in 2024 (7.26 million). At the same time, nights spent on domestic trips in commercial accommodation establishments with at least five beds amounted to nearly 3 million in 2025, around 1% less than in 2024, indicating greater stability in demand for commercial accommodation compared with overall domestic travel.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications co-ordinates national tourism policy in close co-operation with the Visit Estonia team in the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency. Visit Estonia is responsible for a large part of tourism policy implementation and plays a key role in the international marketing of Estonia as a tourism destination, strengthening the network of DMOs and co-ordinating tourism product development and customer journey experience activities. The Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority is the main supervisory authority for tourism.
Policy development and implementation includes wide consultation with tourism operators and associations including the Estonian Travel and Tourism Association, the Estonian Hotel and Restaurant Association, Estonian Rural Tourism, the Estonian Spa Association, and the Estonian Convention Bureau as well as main gateways like Tallinn Airport and Port of Tallinn. The Ministry together with Visit Estonia co-operate closely with the sector and organise regular meetings with professional and non-governmental organisations. The Tourism Advisory Council, a formal council, meets at least twice a year; the “Visit Estonia Info Morning” for DMOs and other stakeholders takes place every two weeks; monthly meetings are held between Visit Estonia, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, and DMO leaders; and a monthly sector meeting brings together a wide range of stakeholders.
Regional county development centres located in all 15 Estonian counties offer free advisory services to enterprises, local government, non-profit associations and foundations. Visit Estonia has specialist partners in 7 DMOs that offer data management services for every county. Larger cities also have their own tourism development structures (while Tallin is one of the 7 DMOs).
In 2025, EUR 16.6 million was allocated to tourism, of which EUR 10.4 million from the state budget – EUR 2.4 million for developing competitiveness and increasing added value of Estonian tourism businesses, products and destinations; EUR 5.9 million for a smart data-driven tourism marketing programme; EUR 2.1 million for targeted financing of DMOs and convention bureau; and EUR 5.8 million from EU funds. Compared to 2023, the budget has decreased due to the end of REACT-EU funding (which concluded in 2023) and general state budget cuts. In addition, around EUR 0.4 million, outside the Visit Estonia budget, is allocated as tourism expenditure by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority.
Source: OECD, adapted from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, 2026.
Tourism in Estonia is guided by “The Long-Term Outlook for Estonian Tourism 2025-2035,” which provides the strategic framework for the development of four-year action plans. The overarching goal of the Outlook is that Estonia is recognised as a renowned, sustainable, and innovative destination, with the added value of tourism doubled by 2035 (see box below). The long-term outlook sets out five strategic pillars:
Estonia as a year-round attractive tourism destination.
Seamless and diverse transport and digital connectivity.
Diverse, hospitable, and vibrant tourism beyond key centres that supports local development and engages communities.
Tourism is a stable and profitable business sector and is considered a reputable career opportunity with good working conditions.
Estonia’s tourism sector operates smartly, innovatively, and sustainably.
The Outlook was developed through an inclusive co-creation process, involving collaboration with nearly 300 representatives from tourism and other sectors, guided by strategic foresight principles and methodologies. Strategic foresight allowed the consideration of various influencing factors and potential futures, exploring a broad spectrum of changes. The Tourism Advisory Council, established under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and led by the Minister responsible for tourism, will monitor the achievement of results.
The Tourism Action Plan 2026–2029 outlines concrete steps to implement the goals set out in the long-term outlook. It is structured around the five strategic pillars defined in the long-term outlook and includes measurable outcomes for 2029 that contribute to the 2035 targets. The Plan has been developed collaboratively with ministries, agencies, DMOs, and industry stakeholders and serves as a practical tool for prioritising resources and actions across the tourism ecosystem.
Estonia actively supports the development of sustainable tourism through strategic planning, funding, and the promotion of internationally recognised ecolabels. Tourism businesses are encouraged to adopt certifications such as EU Ecolabel, Green Key and EUROPARC, which are aligned with global sustainability standards like Global Sustainable Tourism Council and ISO 14024. These initiatives reflect Estonia’s broader commitment to sustainable tourism by integrating environmental, mobility, and regional development goals into tourism planning and infrastructure.
The internal work plan to develop data-driven tourism, to be finalised in 2026, aims to improve the quality, accessibility, and usability of tourism statistics and data through better co-ordination, automation, and collaboration. Key directions include reaching agreements with partners to update the Tourism Satellite Account; to automate accommodation statistics; to reduce reporting burdens for businesses; and to advance digital tools like real-time analytics, AI-based forecasting, and open data use.
The digitalisation and automation of tourism service providers’ workflows is supported through the Tourism Software Integration and Connectivity Support initiative. This funding enables businesses to adopt new resource management software and integrate it with other systems such as point-of-sale and accounting tools, improving operational efficiency and data quality. Training, counselling and other services to enhance digitalisation are also offered to the tourism sector by Visit Estonia and regional DMOs.
Reducing administrative burden is a key priority across the Estonian economy. The government is actively working to simplify requirements and oversight for businesses. In tourism, this includes removing outdated or unnecessary regulations and reducing state-level intervention, where possible, for accommodation and catering providers, travel companies, and tourist information centres. Under the proposed changes, employers would no longer be required to provide details of a designated workplace environment specialist to the Labour Inspectorate or have micro-enterprises submit a workplace risk assessment to the Labour Inspectorate’s database. These changes do not affect employee safety but significantly reduce the administrative burden on employers.
Estonia is planning to ease regulations on youth employment by allowing minors to work longer during school holidays and simplifying the approval process from the Labour Inspectorate. Additionally, the government is promoting flexible employment contracts to better accommodate individual needs, such as education, caregiving, and health, while ensuring minimum protections like guaranteed hours and social security.
The Long-Term Outlook for Estonian Tourism 2025-2035 serves as a strategic framework that provides direction, clarity, and long-term certainty for all stakeholders in the tourism sector, ensuring co-ordinated action and consistent policy implementation across ministries, municipalities, and industry partners. A longer arc also makes it possible to run realistic scenarios for labour supply and technology uptake problems that cannot be solved within shorter periods.
The plan also re-balances tourism success metrics from pure visitor growth to a triple bottom line. In addition to the classic net promoter performance indicator of “Would you recommend Estonia?”, the strategy now includes Estonian residents’ satisfaction with tourism, tracked biennially in a national resident satisfaction survey, and tourism’s added value, calculated through Statistics Estonia’s Tourism Satellite Account. Bundling economic, social and experiential indicators shifts the debate from visitor numbers to high-value segments and protects tourism’s social licence by giving local communities measurable influence over policy choices. By pairing an extended strategic horizon with resident-centred data, Estonia offers a scalable model for destinations that want sustainable growth, higher export earnings and strong community acceptance in equal measure.