San Francisco Travel Association

Programs: As the city's official visitor promotion organization, the primary purpose of the san francisco travel association is to enhance san francisco's economy by promoting the city as a site for conventions and trade shows, and as a destination for leisure travelers. In support of this purpose, san francisco travel provides sales and marketing, as well as information services to facilitate an excellent visitor experience and enhance the visibility of its members. In fy 2016-17, san francisco travel's convention division booked future meetings representing 1,587,552 hotel room nights. The division continued to refine sales strategies for both citywide conventions as well as self-contained strategies to address business during the moscone expansion period. In 2017, san francisco travel completed comprehensive research on visitor attitudes, usage and visitation in the domestic and international markets. The studies revealed 25. 5 million visitors and record spending of $9. 1 billion in 2017, as well as insights into consumer behaviors which will be used in sales and marketing initiatives. Also completed was the custom economic impact calculator module for convention, sport events and special event. Additionally, san francisco travel association completed data base modeling and intelligence for visitor volume, paid nights and total visitor spend by country and region to better track roi of sales and marketing spend. In fy 2016-17, san francisco travel public policy staff along with the board of directors continued to educate and advocate around issues which affect the visitor experience, and therefore the economic impact of the industry. Staff supported increased funding for street cleaning, homeless services, and security, as well as advocated for accommodations and improved transportation services to meet client needs. San francisco travel's tourism staff generated 120 new tourism programs for partners. We hosted dedicated sales activities in china, japan, australia, uk, mexico, canada, new york city and los angeles, and hosted over 1,000 travel professionals via our fam program. Staff actively worked with san francisco international airport to establish 7 new international non-stop routes and attract 3 new international air carriers, and executed in-market cooperative programs to support the new service. The marketing organization developed marketing campaigns that generated 6 mm visitors to our various web sites (10 different sites in 10 languages) during the 2016-17 fiscal year. The media relations department hosted and assisted more than 1,400 journalists from around the world during fy 2016-17, generating over 6. 5 billion media impressions worldwide. International media alone was valued at in excess of $87 million. San francisco travel operates a visitor information center in hallidie plaza in downtown san francisco that is open 336 days a year (closed sundays from nov - may) as well co-branded location at macy's union square and the california welcome center, which keeps expanded evening and weekend hours. In 2016-2017, the staff assisted over 400,000 visitors. During fy 2016-17, san francisco travel published the following titles in partnership with miles media: the san francisco visitors planning guide for distribution to the traveling public as well as several map-guides in multiple languages. In addition, a meeting planner's guide and a travel planner's guide are also published for free distribution to the meeting planners and professional travel planners domestically and internationally. In the fall of 2016 a new seasonal digital guide was added to the publications mix, creating a new "digital bridge" between the existing printed visitors planning guide and reach a higher-funnel, out-of-market audience in a cost-effective manner.