veteran+ wrote: ↑November 13th, 2023, 9:06 am
ALSO.............the huge decline in Asian tourism.
BTW, I have friends and family from all over the nation and Europe frequently calling me about the never ending coverage of all the apocalyptic "events" from tsunami floods sinking California to millions of homeless taking over Cities.
They show me the photographs and videos as proof. I have lots of experience with both forms and have to explain about angle, perpective, panning, cropping, etc. to make clear the distortion of it all to sensationalize. The appetite for this manipulation is very high.
My partner is Taiwanese born, American dual citizen. I do not speak Mandarin (unfortunately) but am amazed at the non-English language propaganda that is out there about San Francisco (and lesser degree Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles). I'm assuming this probably isn't even on most "visit California" "San Francisco Travel Association" "Travel Oregon" marketers minds.
Off Topic
I think this plus our (sorry, trying to not be "political" just realistic) epidemic of gun violence in the United States as a whole is also keeping some foreign tourism away.
Local Bay Area TV coverage being fed into our YouTube feed has also pushed off any desire to visit Oakland, Berkeley, or San Francisco for them.
HCal wrote: ↑November 13th, 2023, 3:05 pm
San Francisco tourism numbers show that this is not the case. Annual visitors are almost at pre-pandemic levels, and continuing to grow. If trends continue, 2024 will probably set a record. So it doesn't seem like either Chinese or red-state visitors are actually avoiding the city, despite what the media might claim. I have been seeing busloads of Chinese tourists on package tours in the city over the summer.
Hotel prices seem to confirm this as well.
Can you cite your source for annual visitors being almost pre pandemic?
I can't find anything.
Business travel and conventions are WAY down everywhere so that is not a unique issue to the city. Are you excluding that when you say "visitors?"
HCal wrote: ↑November 13th, 2023, 3:05 pm
Hotel prices seem to confirm this as well.
Hotel prices no longer have any relevance to occupancy. In fact there are unfortunately quite a few operators who are spiking their rates and willing to operate with more empty rooms in exchange for less costly labor expense. There is a Hampton Inn for example we used to stay at for about $99 a night that was always booked months in advance, and now the same hotel moved to $399 a night on weeknights and more on weekends. Occupancy in every room type is available daily. I called and asked why they're so crazy in their pricing and they literally said the management would rather be at half capacity and then slash labor to the bone while they save on energy and other costs plus bring in the same or more revenue. As far as they're concerned they make far more profit half empty at $399 a night than they would fully booked at $199 a night due to the labor expenses.
The REVPAR would be even worse if it wasn't for the massive hotel price increases.
Costs of doing business in San Francisco continue to skyrocket as well. Businesses will continue to find alternate locations to base employees due to the gross receipts tax, employee head tax, etc. The city can't afford to cut these taxes because their revenues are so far down from other taxes like sales and property taxes. Death spiral.
HCal wrote: ↑November 13th, 2023, 3:05 pm
San Francisco tourism numbers show that this is not the case. Annual visitors are almost at pre-pandemic levels, and continuing to grow. If trends continue, 2024 will probably set a record. So it doesn't seem like either Chinese or red-state visitors are actually avoiding the city, despite what the media might claim. I have been seeing busloads of Chinese tourists on package tours in the city over the summer.
Hotel prices seem to confirm this as well.
I have seen those numbers as well
But, the damage was already done. It wiil take a bit of this resurgence to continue in order to create visible and perceptual change.
There were many tourists in San Francisco when I last went there earlier this summer. The streets are much cleaner than before and the tourists seem really happy to visit. Everything looks very well kept and safe in tourist heavy areas.
It is the weekday downtown office worker crowd that is very low.
From the numbers in your article, the projected visitor count for 2023 is 23.9 million, which is 91% of the 2019 count. So I considered that to be "almost" recovered, although perhaps I was using the word a bit loosely. But 2019 was an all-time record. Visitor levels are projected to set another record the year after next, so I would say the industry has recovered for the most part, especially considering how big the drop was in 2020-21.
From the numbers in your article, the projected visitor count for 2023 is 23.9 million, which is 91% of the 2019 count. So I considered that to be "almost" recovered, although perhaps I was using the word a bit loosely. But 2019 was an all-time record. Visitor levels are projected to set another record the year after next, so I would say the industry has recovered for the most part, especially considering how big the drop was in 2020-21.
They are still lagging behind places like Chicago for example. Tourism has been on fire especially in 2022 and 2023. Being down 9% in 2023 from 2019 is not an achievement. It is a bottom performance/showing. But that is why you have situations like the ownership group of those Hilton Union Square and Parc 55 walking from the properties... the properties also need capital investment and keeping them doesn't pan out for that operator.
Also let's see what actual 2023 visitor count is as opposed to projected because every flight I've been on since August has been less than 70% full and before that almost every flight I was on from 2022-2023 was full. It may just be a coincidence. The airports still seem very busy and I've still encountered some inventory issues with rental cars but again a few trips lately I've encountered plenty of cars with no wait time and a great choice of vehicles (vs. the basically- wait 20 minutes, take what we have and like it situation I saw during much of 2021-first half of 2023). I've still been in some full hotels but also some that are clearly not even 50% full. What I am getting at is if they are projecting 2023 based on the numbers from the first half of the year, I am not sure the numbers in the second half of the year will show the growth they did in the first half.
