Return of the tourists – Bureau trots out new slogan to lure visitors to the city – San Francisco

San Francisco’s bread-and-butter business, tourism, is inching up, thanks to improved numbers of leisure travelers and conventioneers, the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau announced Tuesday.

Dan Fost, Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/23/BUGNJ7AB3O1.DTL&type=business

But a shortage of business travelers will prevent the city from any return to the heights scaled in the dot-com heyday only four years ago, according to John Marks, the bureau’s president.

The bureau said in its annual report that 14.3 million visitors had come to San Francisco in 2003, a 4 percent increase over 2002. While that number is still well short of the 17.3 million who visited in 2000, it is the first increase since that fateful millennial year.

Likewise, the bureau said, visitor spending, which peaked at $7.6 billion in 2000, rebounded slightly to $6 billion last year from $5.9 billion in 2002. Hotel occupancy, which reached 81 percent in 2000, bottomed out at 65 percent in 2002 and rose slightly to 68 percent last year. The bureau projects hotel occupancy to rise to 71 percent this year.

"Until 2001, we were on golden pond. There was little we could do wrong," Marks said. "Then the dot-com phenomenon became the dot-com bust, followed by the tragic events of Sept. 11, followed by war, followed by anthrax, followed by SARS. It was a perfect storm.

"We still have a long way to go to get anywhere close to where we were in those golden days."

Mayor Gavin Newsom said at a press conference that he had a number of initiatives under way to improve the city’s business climate. He hopes that if business can bounce back, then business travelers will return.

He noted that the city had not had a mayor’s office of economic development for 18 months until he reconstituted it. He has also tried to expedite the permitting process, reach out to existing businesses and reduce the payroll tax.

"We are a city that’s open for business and seeking new business," Newsom said. But he added, "If you look to San Francisco for the best deal financially, you’re not going to find it. We are going to have to play to our strengths," such as the diverse workforce.

The numbers were released as the bureau took a phrase from the local lexicon as its new advertising slogan: "Only in San Francisco." (The old slogan was "Everybody’s Favorite City.")

While the bureau has high hopes that its campaign will help attract more visitors, it doesn’t have the budget to advertise in more far-flung markets on the East Coast or overseas.

Instead, with an ad budget of $1 million, the bureau will try to woo locals to San Francisco’s popular tourist destinations. Local television and radio stations, newspapers and billboard firms have donated another $1.2 million in ads.

(For example, The Chronicle did not charge the bureau the $400,000 it would normally cost to run the eight-page section kicking off the campaign in today’s newspaper. Instead, it charged only a nominal printing cost, said Steve Falk, the newspaper’s publisher and president. The Chronicle is a member of the bureau.)

By contrast, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has a $60 million annual advertising budget and a hip slogan to boot: "What happens here, stays here."

The "Only in San Francisco" slogan drew applause when it was unveiled to 1,200 people at a tourism industry luncheon at the Marriott hotel on Fourth Street. While leading restaurateurs and tourist icons like Sir Francis Drake doorman Tom Sweeney dined on filet mignon, the phrase — which dates at least to a 1960 Herb Caen book, "Only in San Francisco" — was applied to everything from cable cars to Haight-Ashbury hippies.

Yet an only-in-San Francisco top-10 list offered by the bureau’s incoming chairman, hotelier John Handlery, probably landed closer to the mark. Some items from the list: "Dippity-do is an expense item in our mayor’s budget… Prospective employees ask, ‘Does your health plan include tattooing and body piercing?’ "

Robert Farmer, editor of Smart Meetings magazine, which follows the business travel industry, called the slogan "very refreshing, because it can be construed from a negative or a positive angle."

The city does have one serious negative hurdle to overcome, Farmer said. Many people tell him that San Francisco’s homeless problem is a major turn-off.

The city is probably on the right track in trying to court regional visitors. On the Larkspur ferry Tuesday morning, Elizabeth Pontious, 34, of Greenbrae, pushed her sons Benjamin, 3, and Christopher, 1, in a stroller. She said she loves coming into San Francisco for adventures, but her fellow suburbanites are not as enthusiastic. "I actually have to convince them to come with me," she said. "They see it as a much longer drive."

Many others on the ferry came from farther afield. Retirees Dave and Mary Ann Brundage of Lakeland, Fla., ages 79 and 76, were wrapping up a tour of California with some sentimental San Francisco sightseeing.

The O’Reilly family from County Kerry in Ireland was staying with an aunt in Petaluma and planning a day at Alcatraz, Chinatown, Pier 39 and Lombard Street. Joy Cohen, 52, of Upper Saddle River, N.J., and her son Barry, 14, were intrigued to hear so many languages spoken by the throngs of tourists Monday at the Japanese tea garden in Golden Gate Park.

At the Ferry Building, Virginia Donohue, 44, of Noe Valley, was on her weekly outing to the farmers market, with her 4-year-old triplets Johanna, Liam and Sydney, and 2-year-old Quinn in tow. Other favorite spots include the merry-go-round at Yerba Buena Gardens, the sea lions at Pier 39, the San Francisco Zoo and the art museums.

She also likes visiting friends in the suburbs, so she can experience a warmer micro-climate. But what about the suburban friends? "The friends we have in the suburbs don’t come in," Donohue said.