While San Francisco’s tourism industry is on the upswing compared to when the pandemic began, its recovery hasn’t quite matched California’s overall.
A recent report conducted by tourism research firm Dean Runyan Associates on behalf of nonprofit marketing organization Visit California shows that California’s travel spending rose to $134.4 billion in 2022, a 31.7% increase from 2021. They are now at 92.7% of their 2019 value, which is about $145 billion in 2019.
San Francisco’s tourism recovery doesn’t square with those numbers, but the city has improved tremendously since 2021. Visitor spending in 2022 totaled about $12 billion, a whopping 71% increase from 2021. That amount is still only 86% of what it was in 2019, though.
As a region, the Bay Area saw the strongest year-over-year growth in travel spending in the state at 47%, compared to just 29% statewide. This comes after a particularly weak recovery in 2021, a spokesman for Visit California told SFGATE. According to data from Travel San Francisco, the city’s monthly hotel occupancy rate was 71% in June 2022, compared to just 42% in June 2021.
Urban parts of California like the Bay Area and Los Angeles are still struggling to attract so many international visitors, particularly visitors from Asian countries, according to Visit California. That’s partly why their tourism recovery isn’t as strong as in other parts of the state — particularly on the Central Coast, where the tourism economy is already up 98% of where it was in 2019.
The industries with the highest tourism spending in San Francisco were lodging and hospitality, followed by retail sales and air transportation. Accommodation and gastronomy also employ the most people in all tourism sectors. Nationwide, the tourism industry supported about 1 million jobs in 2022, a 16.8% increase from 2021.
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