START-UP CENTRAL
San Francisco seems to draw as many would-be digital moguls as it does tourists.
San Francisco seems to draw as many would-be digital moguls as it does tourists.
There’s a discernible buzz in the picturesque bayside city of San Francisco – and an increasing number of Australian accents on the streets of this start-up epicentre. In April this year the Turnbull government launched a “Landing Pad” for Australian internet entrepreneurs, a mini-incubator within San Francisco’s RocketSpace technology campus on the fringe of the downtown financial district, while Qantas celebrated the reboot of its direct flights from Sydney by holding a world-first inflight TED talks session on board a San Francisco-bound flight in February this year.
“We all know about the impact of the California tech boom,” said Qantas’s Olivia Wirth at the time of the TED talks flight, “but what’s really exciting is the growing number of Australians doing business with Silicon Valley … one of the reasons we relaunched flights between Sydney and San Francisco was to support growing business travel driven by the tech boom.”
While the city has been transformed in recent years by a febrile start-up culture and the rivers of revenue flowing from established tech giants like Apple, Google and Facebook, San Francisco remains a first-class tourist destination.
Tackle the city in style by setting up camp at the Fairmont San Francisco, a majestic hotel facing Grace Cathedral on top of Nob Hill, with stately rooms commanding sweeping views of the city from the Golden Gate Bridge to Alcatraz to Coit Tower.
Dating back to 1907 – a year after the Great Earthquake that levelled the city – the Fairmont is steeped in a glorious history. Alfred Hitchcock filmed scenes for Vertigo here, while the penthouse suite, which occupies the whole top floor of the hotel, has hosted many a US president, including John F Kennedy, who reportedly made good use of a secret bookshelf door in the atrium-style library to spirit in a certain movie-star mistress.
The hotel stands at the only juncture where all of San Francisco’s cable car lines meet, so it’s the perfect base for your sightseeing expeditions. You may want to start your day, however, by walking along the handsome streets plunging down from Nob Hill towards Union Square and the Market Street shopping district. Heading back up the steep hill to the Fairmont is another matter: grab a cable car or avail yourself of the services of one of the RocketSpace incubator’s most notable success stories – Uber. Go to www.fairmont.com/san-francisco. Qantas flies direct to San Francisco from Sydney six days a week with connecting flights from other Australian cities. For fares and schedule information, go to www.qantas.com.