Hot weather bring more visitors, tourism dollars to San Francisco
A prolonged heat wave bringing triple-digit temperatures to Bay Area inland areas means more people seeking relief in San Francisco and other coastal areas - and spending money while cooling off.
Pool weather in the scorching hot East Bay typically means 70s to 80s in San Francisco. A lot of people wore jackets as they strolled along the waterfront on Sunday evening.
"Being from Phoenix, I appreciate this weather," said Dave Mohan, who now lives in San Francisco.
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Many businesses said the nice weather brought in a lot of visitors to the city.
"The weather did help us a lot. A lot of our customers, these last couple of days, they were from the Central Valley, Sacramento, Southern California," said Maneet Sohal, who manages San Francisco Deluxe Sightseeing Tours. "And they were all just trying to get out of the heat. And a lot of our locals as well ... The holiday falling on a Thursday this year definitely helped out. The tourists ended up staying for Friday, Saturday and Sunday."
He said while his business isn't back to pre-pandemic 2019 levels, this year has been better than the last couple of years.
"We're seeing an uptick in tourism. June was a little bit better and then July has been off to a really good start," said Sohal.
Many bars and restaurants say they also have noticed a stronger start to the summer season.
"If you have a good place, and you have good product, and you have good people working for you, it's going to be fine," said Becker von Felsburg, a bartender at Hi Dive.
San Francisco travel experts said while domestic tourists and European visitors have returned to the city, they are still missing a big chunk of the Asian market. They said only about 50% of the Chinese tourists have returned. Traditionally, Chinese visitors spend big money in San Francisco.
"The Chinese tourists, we're not seeing very much of, it's been that way for about four years now," said Sohal.
But with a little help from the nice weather and the city's image slowly improving, Sohal is optimistic.
"We're really hopeful that we'll have a good, strong summer and continue this upward trend that we're seeing," said Sohal.
