San Francisco Travel Association reported San Francisco welcomed 18.01 million visitors in 2014, an increase of 6.5 percent from 2013.
These visitors spent $10.67 billion in 2014, up 13.7 percent from the previous year. The data was presented during the 10th annual Visitor Industry Outlook & Marketing Conference at the Marines’ Memorial Club and Hotel.
“The growth of San Francisco’s visitor industry continued to break records in 2014,” said Joe D’Alessandro, president and CEO, San Francisco Travel. “Both visitor spending and the total number of visitors have reached the highest levels ever.”
In 2014, San Francisco Travel booked 41 conventions at Moscone Center, which will fill 939,115 hotel room nights between 2014 and 2029. Their attendees and exhibitors will spend an estimated $679,172,475.
“While domestic leisure, business and convention travel continue to expand, most of the industry’s growth in recent years has been in the international sector. Since 2009, international visitor spending in San Francisco has grown 71 percent. In the same time frame, domestic spending grew 25 percent,” D’Alessandro continued. “We estimate that San Francisco had 4.1 million international visitors in 2014, about 31 percent of our visitors from outside the Bay Area (or 22.8 percent of all visitors). They spent $3.4 billion, or 34 percent of the total spent by all visitors.”
“The year ahead holds significant opportunities for San Francisco to keep up the pace,” D’Alessandro said. “We will showcase the city’s appeal for conventions and events to Meeting Professional International’s World Education Congress in August. And next February, we will invite the world to join us for Super Bowl 50 with the game at the new Levi’s Stadium and the NFL Experience, Fan Village and other events in San Francisco.”
