A record 24.6 million visitors came to San Francisco in 2015, breaking the previous record set in 2014, according to the San Francisco Travel Association.
The numbers in 2015 were up 2.7 percent from the previous year and consisted of nearly 19 million leisure travelers and nearly six million business travelers.
The 24.6 million visitors spent $9.3 billion in San Francisco, according to the travel association’s officials.
President and CEO of the San Francisco Travel Association Joe D’Alessandro attributed the increase to the professional and sophisticated hotels, restaurants, cultural organizations and one of the best airports in the world, San Francisco International Airport.
Visitors spent about $8.5 billion in the city while meeting planners and exhibitors spent about $723 million for goods and services.
The number of jobs related to tourism rose 1 percent to 76,520 in 2015, which created an annual payroll of $2.3 billion, the travel association’s officials said.
Slightly more than 10 million of the 24.6 million visitors to San Francisco were overnight visitors. Nearly three million of those overnight visitors were international visitors, the travel officials said.
In 2015, the San Francisco Travel Association booked 44 conventions at the Moscone Center. People from those conventions will fill 1,153,258 hotel rooms and are expected to spend an estimated $1,001,190,532, according to the association’s officials.
Keith Burbank, Bay City News
