The San Francisco Convention and Visitor's Bureau hopes to match 2008 tourist spending by growing the city's social networking presence on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Joe D'Alessandro, the bureau's executive director, noted at the bureau's annual luncheon that visitors to San Francisco broke a new spending record in 2008. D'Alessandro stressed a new focus on electronic marketing which may be the key to boosting the current tourism market in San Francisco.
During 2008 the city was visited by more tourists, business people and conventioneers than any other year and the income from such visits consisted of over $8.4 billion in city revenue. Roughly 16.4 million people were responsible for the incoming revenue which brought in $527 million dollars in taxes. Last year hoteliers and city lawmakers created the Tourism Improvement District which levies a 1-1.5% tax on hotel visits. The money collected from the tax is used to improve the Moscone Center and the city's advertising strategy.
This year the bureau hopes to use the Tourism Improvement District funds to upgrade their website, grow its presence on social networking platforms, create a consistency between printed and advertising material and develop a mobile tool to help visitors locate city destinations. The tax will allow the bureau to focus more time and effort on technology which has been lacking in the past. This new form of advertising will hopefully create a fresh buzz around San Francisco and drive tourism to the city.
