San Francisco Gets Tourism Bump from AI – But Recovery Will Be Slow
Skift Take
San Francisco is finally showing some gains. But the hole was deep.
In a possible reversal of fortune, San Francisco's hotel sector appears to be experiencing a resurgence, helped by the city's burgeoning AI industry. But the city's downtown faces an uphill battle for a full tourism recovery.
Recent data from CoStar paints a good picture: Last week, 79% of San Francisco's hotels were filled, making the city America's top hotel market from June 9 to June 15. CoStar attributed the strength to a conference on AI put on by Databricks.
May was promising too. Occupancy hit 71%, up 4 points from last year.
Still, the hole was deep. “It’s relatively better, but not at pre-pandemic level,” said Jan Freitag, senior vice president of Lodging insights for STR and national director, of hospitality analyt
