Although tourist might get in our way when crossing the street and you really want to strangle them with their camera strap; they do help our local economy significantly. In 2010 travel in San Francisco produced 1.88 billion dollars in payroll, which supported 67,122 jobs--hotel staff, tour guides, bar tenders, waiters, cooks, and San Francisco Travel (where I found all the listed stats), to name a few. On an average day in 2010 a visitor spent about $22.84 and although locals may frown upon congestion caused by tourist, I find pride in knowing that so many invest time and money to visit this great city that I call my home. The 15.9 million visitors that traveled to SF in 2010 spent 8.3 billion dollars on local businesses. So the next time you want to honk at the tourist driving the opposite direction down a one way street think not of their stupidity but the size of their wallet.
I commute to SF on Bart so I can totally relate to wanting to kick a tourist's backpack off a seat so I can sit down. I used to work in a small jewerly store in the mall so I can also understand how much of an impact tourists have on businesses. It was always easy to tell when there was a vacation period in schools because the mall would be packed with people. People who were just visiting our store also felt the need to buy something they liked in person because they didn't know if they would be able to find the same item online or in a different location.
ReplyDeleteTourist will always be a vital entity to any large city economy. The money generated by the tourist help a lot of small mom and pop store stay in business. I worked for a small restaurant in the Wharf and more than 75 percent of our business was from people out of town.
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