San Francisco Takes Industry Out To The Ball Game

May the best team win!

A friendly rivalry occurred at the Rogers Centre last night as the San Francisco Travel Association delegation cheered on the San Francisco Giants while invited industry partners cheered on their home team.

In the end, the Toronto Blue Jays came out victorious with a score of 2:1.

Despite the loss, the San Francisco Travel Association’s (SFTA) Executive Vice President & Chief Tourism Officer Hubertus Funke has plenty of reasons to celebrate as 2023 is a big year of milestones for San Francisco.

In the city to meet with trade partners, Funke told PressToday that iconic attractions like Alcatraz, the Ferry Building and San Francisco’s cable cars are all celebrating significant anniversaries this year.

“We have a lot to celebrate in San Francisco this year. First of all, there’s a ton of anniversaries and festivals around it that are happening this year. To name a few, the famous cable cars are turning 150 years old this year,” he said. “As you may know, they are the only moving national landmark in the US. They’re very unique to San Francisco. People love them, residents and visitors alike. This year, there’s going to be a lot of different events and activities around that anniversary that are also really appealing to visitors with festivals and events around different activations.”

Funke said the Canadian market remains a priority for the destination with Mexico and Canada being the top international markets for San Francisco.

“In 2022, we had about 222,000 visitors visit from Canada. We’re not back to where we were in 2019 — that was way over 300,000 visitors — but we’re getting back there,” he noted. “For 2023, we’re expecting about 288,000 visitors come from Canada, and that’s a really, really good number. Hopefully by 2024 we’re looking to eclipse the 2019 numbers. We have excellent airlift… Air Canada has made significant expansions but we also have significant service with WestJet, with United Airlines and so that has really helped us put San Francisco again into the mindset of Canadians.”

Stay tuned for more on what’s new in San Francisco in an upcoming edition of Travel Courier.