Tourism slowdown drains revenue
May 12, 2009
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| Bringing in the dough: About 131,000 visitors came to The City daily last year, spending an average of $23.33 each day. (Examiner file photo) |
SAN FRANCISCO — Despite a crushing economic crisis affecting the American tourism industry in late 2008, San Francisco managed to survive the year without taking a hit, according to a study commissioned by the Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The report shines a favorable light on The City’s 2008 tourism numbers, but projections from other agencies and organizations show that those figures, such as hotel-occupancy rates, have sharply declined in 2009.
About 131,000 people visited The City daily last year, spending a total of $23.33 million a day. Both of those numbers were increases from the previous year, contributing to an industry with a $2.01 billion payroll.
“The economic uncertainty is affecting travel across the board and around the world,” Joe D’Alessandro, head of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, said in a statement. “Our job of attracting visitors is much tougher this year than it was in 2008. In a downturn, the focus is on market share — getting a bigger piece of a smaller pie.”
Some polls are showing a grim outlook for the tourism industry in the future. The number of vacationing Americans will be down this summer, according to a new Associated Press-GfK Poll, and a third of Americans surveyed said they have already canceled at least one trip because of financial concerns.
Less tourism also means a major drain on city coffers. The tourism industry generated more than $527 million in taxes in 2008 for The City, up 6 percent from the previous year.
But numbers from the Office of the Controller show that steep declines in sales-tax and hotel-tax revenues have left the budget short for the current fiscal year.
bbegin@sfexaminer.com
