San Francisco tourism slumped a bit in 2017, and the San Francisco Travel Association [SFTA] says that a one-two punch of the city’s ongoing homeless crisis and the United States in general’s declining public image in other countries is to blame.
SFTA—a non-profit dedicated to coaxing tourism to the city on behalf of the businesses that make up its membership, which grew out of a similar group founded in the wake of the 1906 earthquake, said in its annual report that 25.5 million people visited the city last year.
That’s actually an improvement over 2016’s 25.1 million, but the increase of just 1.4 percent year over year is fairly blah by San Francisco standards, and also lower than SFTA’s early 2017 prediction of 25.6 million, which it later tapered down in an adjusted projection released later in the year after it was evident that the numbers just weren’t there.
SFTA CEO Joe D’Alessandro pointed the finger at a number of factors, including the ongoing work at Moscone Center which meant forgoing some big-ticket conventions last year. But the main problem is complaints about the city’s homeless and street hygiene problems.
“[Tourists] wonder why does one of the wealthiest cities in one of the wealthiest states have streets that look like this?” D’Alessandro told CBS SF. “Why are there people living on the streets in these conditions?”
It’s a good question. In January, a researcher for the United Nations Human Rights Council on an unofficial trip to California compared conditions in Bay Area homeless camps to those in some of the most impoverished cities in the world—but of course, San Francisco is now wealthier than ever, both in terms of median wealth and the highest income brackets, according to the most recent estimates by the US Census.
SFTA also suggests that part of the tourism problem is political, with bad press about the White House hurting the US’s image abroad and chronic uncertainty about possible changes to US travel policy scaring off some potential visitors.
Nevertheless, the association predicts another rise in tourism this year, anticipating more than 26 million visitors in 2018.
- Slow Growth In SF Tourism [SF Business Times]
- Trump, Homeless To Blame For Tourism [CBS SF]
- UN Expert Decries SF Homeless [Curbed SF]
Loading comments...