How to Work with Our Global Tourism Development Team
Learn what San Francisco Travel's Tourism department is doing to market the city around the world and how you can get involved.
This article is part of our Member Orientation series. To continue the series, click the next step button at the bottom of the page.
San Francisco Travel’s Global Tourism Development team is here to answer your questions about international markets.
Why Is International Tourism So Important?
International visitors play a key role in the economic development of the city. In 2019, San Francisco welcomed more than 26 million visitors, with international visitors making up 28 percent of our overnight visitors. While this number may seem low, it’s important to note that international visitors tend to stay longer and spend more. 62 percent of the total visitor spending came from international visitors in 2019.
What Does The Global Tourism Development Team Do?
The Global Tourism Development team’s key objective is to market the city and the region to the domestic and international travel trade industry, which includes travel agents, tour wholesalers, receptive operators and airlines. Our priorities are:
- Sustaining growth in international visitor volume and spending.
- Partnering with SFO to expand international airline service from key and secondary markets.
- Encouraging length of stay, which is directly related to spend.
- Collaborating with and supporting you, our partner businesses.
Our strategy is to develop and grow in-market travel trade relationships with those business segments mentioned above. To do this, we educate the travel trade about San Francisco and the Bay Area by providing tools and assets, training sessions, familiarization tours, and more. We leverage opportunities with Visit California and Brand USA, our partners in marketing the state and the country as a destination. We integrate, wherever possible, our PR and consumer marketing messages to reinforce and extend our efforts.
Where in the World is San Francisco Travel?
San Francisco Travel has in-market representatives in 13 countries:
- Asia – Japan, Korea, China (Shanghai and Beijing), Australia, and India
- Europe – UK, Germany, France, Italy, Scandinavia
- Americas – Canada, Latin America (Brazil and Argentina)
We are also active in Mexico, Taiwan and the U.A.E. on a project basis. While we don’t have offices there, we’re working those markets to ensure the San Francisco brand is present in these countries.
The Global Tourism Development team is your market expert resource and we're here to help. If you have a question you’d like to ask about any of our markets, or if you are interested in hosting a familiarization tour, don’t hesitate to contact us.