diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/61338-tower-inventory-integer-inventory_id.yaml b/changelogs/fragments/61338-tower-inventory-integer-inventory_id.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..023cf779c97
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/61338-tower-inventory-integer-inventory_id.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+---
+bugfixes:
+- tower inventory plugin - fix TypeError when giving inventory_id as integer (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/61333)
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/inventory/tower.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/inventory/tower.py
index 76eb7eb67b7..f4f20fe5091 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/inventory/tower.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/inventory/tower.py
@@ -47,8 +47,12 @@ DOCUMENTATION = '''
                 - name: TOWER_PASSWORD
             required: True
         inventory_id:
-            description: The ID of the Ansible Tower inventory that you wish to import.
-            type: string
+            description:
+                - The ID of the Ansible Tower inventory that you wish to import.
+                - This is allowed to be either the inventory primary key or its named URL slug.
+                - Primary key values will be accepted as strings or integers, and URL slugs must be strings.
+                - Named URL slugs follow the syntax of "inventory_name++organization_name".
+            type: raw
             env:
                 - name: TOWER_INVENTORY
             required: True
@@ -99,9 +103,10 @@ import os
 import json
 from ansible.module_utils import six
 from ansible.module_utils.urls import Request, urllib_error, ConnectionError, socket, httplib
-from ansible.module_utils._text import to_native
-from ansible.errors import AnsibleParserError
+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_text, to_native
+from ansible.errors import AnsibleParserError, AnsibleOptionsError
 from ansible.plugins.inventory import BaseInventoryPlugin
+from ansible.config.manager import ensure_type
 
 # Python 2/3 Compatibility
 try:
@@ -122,18 +127,18 @@ class InventoryModule(BaseInventoryPlugin):
         try:
             response = request_handler.get(tower_url)
         except (ConnectionError, urllib_error.URLError, socket.error, httplib.HTTPException) as e:
-            error_msg = 'Connection to remote host failed: {err}'.format(err=e)
+            n_error_msg = 'Connection to remote host failed: {err}'.format(err=to_native(e))
             # If Tower gives a readable error message, display that message to the user.
             if callable(getattr(e, 'read', None)):
-                error_msg += ' with message: {err_msg}'.format(err_msg=e.read())
-            raise AnsibleParserError(to_native(error_msg))
+                n_error_msg += ' with message: {err_msg}'.format(err_msg=to_native(e.read()))
+            raise AnsibleParserError(n_error_msg)
 
         # Attempt to parse JSON.
         try:
             return json.loads(response.read())
         except (ValueError, TypeError) as e:
             # If the JSON parse fails, print the ValueError
-            raise AnsibleParserError(to_native('Failed to parse json from host: {err}'.format(err=e)))
+            raise AnsibleParserError('Failed to parse json from host: {err}'.format(err=to_native(e)))
 
     def verify_file(self, path):
         if path.endswith('@tower_inventory'):
@@ -159,7 +164,19 @@ class InventoryModule(BaseInventoryPlugin):
                                   force_basic_auth=True,
                                   validate_certs=self.get_option('validate_certs'))
 
-        inventory_id = self.get_option('inventory_id').replace('/', '')
+        # validate type of inventory_id because we allow two types as special case
+        inventory_id = self.get_option('inventory_id')
+        if isinstance(inventory_id, int):
+            inventory_id = to_text(inventory_id, nonstring='simplerepr')
+        else:
+            try:
+                inventory_id = ensure_type(inventory_id, 'str')
+            except ValueError as e:
+                raise AnsibleOptionsError(
+                    'Invalid type for configuration option inventory_id, '
+                    'not integer, and cannot convert to string: {err}'.format(err=to_native(e))
+                )
+        inventory_id = inventory_id.replace('/', '')
         inventory_url = '/api/v2/inventories/{inv_id}/script/?hostvars=1&towervars=1&all=1'.format(inv_id=inventory_id)
         inventory_url = urljoin(tower_host, inventory_url)