San Francisco’s travel and hotel industry hosted a summit to talk about what the future holds for city’s most important industry: tourism. Sergio Quintana reports.
San Francisco’s travel and hotel industry hosted a summit on Tuesday to talk about what the future holds for city’s most important industry: tourism.
The first bit of good news in next year's tourism forecast is the announcement by Marc Benioff that Dreamforce and its thousands of attendees will return to San Francisco for the next three years.
"Let me say thank you Marc Benioff, thank you Salesforce, thank you Dreamforce. That company is based out of San Francisco and it goes to the fabric of our city. That event is near and dear to all of us,” said Alex Bastian with the Hotel Council of San Francisco.
But there's a few other events on the 2025 calendar that forecasters say will also boost the city's outlook and coffers.
The Moscone Center is set to host 29 events, that's four more than this year. The 2025 NBA All Star Game will be hosted at Chase Center in February. Chase Center will also host the NCAA Men’s Basketball Regionals in March and the Laver Cup Tennis tournament in September.
Not only will those events attract people. But also national exposure, at least that's the hope.
Of the national travel trends are also promising for San Francisco and the Bay Area. Business travel and hotel bookings continue to rise. But there's also some challenges. San Francisco has seen a drop off in hotel bookings domestic leisure travelers.
"Most of the hotel types have had declining performance in San Francisco, but the similarities are, the biggest declines are the lower end of the hotel product type,” said Amy Heiss with the Coast Guard Research Group.
Heiss speculates it may be because the dollar is so strong, some people are choosing to travel abroad instead or they're opting for other types of accommodations like Airbnbs.
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Some of the speakers on Tuesday acknowledged even though crime reports are down in the city, there's still a lot of work to be done about the perception of safety.
There's also hope that international travelers will continue making San Francisco a top destination. In the last year, several European and Asian carriers have started new service or resumed flights to SFO.
