San Francisco is hosting the Conference of the Northern California Visitor Industry Outlook and the conference runs today from eight thirty this morning until one o’clock this afternoon at the Hilton hotel in downtown San Francisco. While the conference features and attracts mostly industry professionals, the public is also welcomed.
Tourism is San Francisco’s greatest source of revenue, with more than sixteen million tourists who visited the city’s many sightseeing attractions and came for wine country tours in 2007 contributing eight and one quarter billion dollars to the economy, generating almost five hundred million dollars in tax revenue for San Francisco. The numbers for 2008 are not yet available. There was a fairly strong convention business last year, with international tourism not trailing off by much until late in the year so 2008 might have generated more revenue. Regardless of last year’s success, the outlook for 2009 is sobering, and is expected to show a decline in tourism, conventions, and business travel.
The San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau also expects this year to continue on the downward trend in travel, not to mention a reduction in national travel by American tourists, as well as a precipitous drop in corporate travel as a result of cost-cutting fueled by the negative publicity of corporate extravagance amidst the sobering economic conditions.
