San Francisco Mayor London Breed says she is feeling optimistic about the return of international visitors after her trip to Europe where she tried to lure tourists back to the city.
For more, stream KCBS Radio now.
While much of San Francisco has reopened, international tourism is still sluggish. Foreign visitors spent more than $5 billion here in 2019 that number was down by 80% to $1 billion last year.
For 10 days, Mayor Breed has been talking to people in London, Paris, Brussels and Frankfurt encouraging them to come to San Francisco on their next vacation to try to get those tourism dollars back.
"Making it affordable, making sure people know hotel options are available, making sure they know we're open for business after the global pandemic and how well we did in terms of the vaccination rates," Breed explained.
She said the people she met seemed ready to travel again and that more direct flights to San Francisco from Europe could be a game-changer.
"My goal was to get people excited about San Francisco and in the next couple months as we see those hotels start to book up and those conventions start to come back and people start to visit the city we're gonna see if it paid off," she said.
She noted that people raised a concern about the fact that visitors need a negative test to come to the United States.
"Part of the conversations too are working with the hotels and airlines to make sure people could either get refunds or postpone their trips if they test positive and can't travel, but I think once that restriction is lifted that’s gonna also open up the flood gates for tourism in not just San Francisco in the entire country," she said.
LISTEN to KCBS Radio
FAVORITE KCBS Radio
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Related
