When ukulele-wielding tour guide Clyde Always reaches for an anecdote about the last few gloomy tourism seasons in San Francisco, he uses the example of Bob and Janice, a fictitious couple from rural Iowa who saved up to visit the city — only for chaos to reign.
The unlucky duo suffers all the cliche disasters: having their car broken into and their luggage stolen, witnessing sidewalk drug use, browsing a ransacked Walgreens, and stepping in poop. When friends back home ask about the trip, the couple warn them never to visit San Francisco.
“That’s a made-up story, but it’s not too far off from what a lot of people experienced,” Always said. “The main reason tourism is down is because there were too many Bobs and Janices.”
But he’s feeling optimistic: “We did have a pretty big change in management during the last local election,” he said, citing the new mayor and shake-up on the Board of Supervisors.
Perception has a funny way of leading reality. Thanks to a continued uptick in international travel and a packed calendar of high-profile events, 2025 is slated to be the year the important tourism industry finally starts shedding the baggage of San Francisco’s reputation problem and thrives again.
“We’ve been so caught up fighting this from a public relations perspective,” said Anna Marie Presutti, the newly appointed CEO of SF Travel, the city’s official marketing organization. “But San Francisco doesn’t get awarded events like the [NBA] All-Star Game or Super Bowl if it’s not a top-tier city.
“This year feels like our moment,” she added. “We’re finally putting our best lipstick on and are getting ready for the big dance.”
There are already 59% more events slated for the Moscone Center than there were last year, equivalent to 659,700 nights in hotel rooms booked, according to SF Travel.
“Big dance” events include the aforementioned NBA All-Star Game and the Laver Cup tennis competition, the first time both are being held in San Francisco.
Additionally, Salesforce inked a deal to keep Dreamforce — San Francisco’s biggest business conference — in the city through 2027. Microsoft will bring its flagship Ignite conference to the city in November for the first time in 30 years.
One of the feared stumbling blocks for a rebound — a disruptive months-long hotel strike — ended in December — a relief for industry insiders before the new year.
“Good things are happening,” said Joy Ou, president and CEO of Group i, a development firm that in 2022 opened the boutique Line Hotel in Mid-Market. After struggling during the height of Covid, when tech corporations and residents pulled back from the urban core, Ou and her investors partnered with Hilton to pivot and rebrand the property as the Timbri Hotel, with a new cafe and ground-floor restaurant operator. They hope to capitalize on the city’s next upswing with the help of Hilton’s marketing and distribution savvy.
According to Michael Stathokostopoulos, senior director of hospitality analytics at CoStar, the years of lower revenue and occupancy for the local hotel market since the start of the pandemic are expected to reverse in 2025, driven by higher rates as travel and events rebound.
In addition, he said, since few new hotels have been built, occupancy rates — which lag by 20% from 2019 — should improve.
“We still have so much potential,” Ou said. “I’m hopeful that things are going to change. We need someone to look at our problems with fresh eyes and execute better for the city.”
That’s not to say the news is all good. Several major hotel operators have surrendered properties to lenders in recent years, including the 668-room Hyatt Regency San Francisco Downtown SoMa. But these properties continue to operate normally as the commercial real estate industry works its way through debt deals made before the pandemic.
But data from San Francisco International Airport paint an encouraging picture of returning tourists. Even though it has yet to recover all its pre-pandemic traffic, the airport last year saw international travel eclipse its all-time high, says departing director Ivar Satero.
What’s notable is that the benchmark was reached despite travel to and from China — previously the airport’s biggest international destination — down due to pandemic closures and geopolitical tension.
Last year, SFO serviced more than 51 million passengers, down 12% from the pre-pandemic record of 58 million.
“We’re expecting a full recovery in 2025,” Satero said. “Over the next two years, we expect to hit our maximum capacity of 70 million.”
Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 are also seeing signs of a rebound, leaders say. The iconic waterfront reigns as one of the city’s busiest tourist attractions.
The number of Chinese tourists has started to creep back up from the pandemic dive, according to Pier 39 President and CEO Scott Gentner. “We started to see tour groups come back stronger than we had anticipated,” he said.
Before Covid, Chinese nationals accounted for the most international visitors to the pier. The number plummeted in recent years, but last summer the group crept up to No. 3, following travelers from Canada and the United Kingdom.
Sales have essentially returned to pre-Covid numbers, Gentner added, and retail occupancy in the area hovers around 90%. Although the number of people who visited the pier last year was a few million short of the 15 million in 2019, he’s betting that SF’s narrative shift and uptick in conventions and events will drive gains this year.
The pattern’s already playing out at Fisherman’s Wharf. “In the first four days of January, we already had a 50% increase [in visitors] from last year at the start of the year,” said communications director Cecile Gregoire, citing an auspicious 220,000 visitors last week.
“I really believe that 2025 is the start of a comeback for Fishermen’s Wharf and the city,” she said. “We’re really hoping that we’re going to be able to level up.”
When the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, it brought a swell of nervous excitement for Zaileen Janmohamed, CEO of the Bay Area Host Committee, the nonprofit tasked with recruiting and organizing major sporting events.
“The Bay Area is going to be the epicenter of sports for 18 months,” she said. “That’s unprecedented.”
She sees this as an opportunity for the city to “show up” and “shine” as it gets a mix of IRL visitors and TV viewers.
The stakes are high. Always, the tour guide, said those impressions shape San Francisco’s image in the minds of “middle-American tourists” — the Bobs and Janices, as you will, who fuel his business.
In his experience, it pays to be optimistic but not naive.
“I would imagine that things will be picking up this year,” Always said. “But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”