San Francisco tourism spending, which powers the native economic system’s greatest sector, greater than doubled to $7.4 billion in 2022 from the prior yr as town partially recovered from the pandemic.

Spending quantity in 2022 was 77% of the file excessive $9.6 billion in 2019 earlier than the pandemic. A full spending restoration is anticipated by 2024, although resort charges aren’t anticipated to succeed in pre-pandemic ranges till 2026, in response to San Francisco Journey, town’s tourism bureau.

Leisure and enterprise spending generated $522 million in charges and taxes in 2022, and a continued restoration is crucial as metropolis leaders face a possible $728 million deficit over the following two fiscal years.

The variety of guests grew 29% to 21.9 million in 2022 from the prior yr, and worldwide guests greater than tripled to 1.7 million, largely from Europe. China’s border reopening is anticipated to spice up San Francisco this yr, as Chinese language vacationers had been the largest spenders earlier than the pandemic, accounting for $1.2 billion in 2019.

Katie Perkins (left) and Rayo Velasco go to the Golden Gate Bridge whereas on the town for a piece journey in San Francisco in 2022. Town’s tourism numbers shot up throughout 2022.

Laura Morton

“The unimaginable development in 2022 was fueled largely by worldwide leisure vacationers and our conference enterprise,” stated Joe D’Alessandro, CEO of San Francisco Journey, in an announcement. “We made important headway in 2022 via focused efforts to draw abroad vacationers and safe occasions for Moscone Heart.”

Final yr noticed the complete return of the Dreamforce convention, which drew a bought out, in-person crowd of 40,000 folks at Moscone Heart, together with main occasions like Outdoors Lands and Pleasure.

There have been 33 Moscone Heart conventions in 2022, up from 5 in 2021 however lower than the 49 in 2019. Conference attendees accounted for 347,788 resort room nights.

Momentum is continuous this yr, with 35 conventions booked for Moscone Heart, accounting for 673,000 projected room nights. The JPMorgan well being care convention returned to Union Sq. in January for the primary time since 2019, and the Sport Builders Convention at Moscone Heart this week.

Customer spending is anticipated to rise to $8.7 billion in 2023 — 90% of 2019 ranges — and customer quantity is forecast to develop to 23.9 million.

Resort occupancy rose to 62.1% in 2022, up from 43.7% from 2021. The common every day resort price was up 41% to $231.12.
In 2022, jobs supported by tourism nearly doubled to 53,156, up from 27,318 final yr however beneath the over 86,000 jobs in 2019.  

SFO passenger site visitors was over 42.3 million passengers in 2022 and it expects over 50 million this yr. The airport anticipates that it’ll attain 2019 ranges between 2025 and 2026.

“San Francisco just isn’t but reaching pre-pandemic numbers as anticipated, however we anticipate to see additional development this yr, particularly as we start to welcome again extra vacationers from Asia,”  D’Alessandro stated in an announcement. “With the return of flight routes to SFO from cities throughout Asia and an ease on testing necessities, we should always see will increase in worldwide visitation and spending.”

Attain Roland Li: roland.li@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @rolandlisf