State’s tourism industry reeling
Revenue, jobs plummet as pandemic brings ‘disaster’
Nearly 40% of California jobs lost during the coronavirus pandemic are in the hospitality and leisure industries, and revenue from travel spending will fall by more than half this year.
Those are among several sobering figures to emerge in recent reports commissioned by the state’s tourism bureau, Visit California. The state’s tourism economy — typically the most robust in the country — has cratered during the past eight months, the reports show, as international leisure travel has all but evaporated and statewide shelterinplace mandates largely kept Californians close to home during the summer months.
As a result, 2020 travel revenue is expected to plummet 54% by year’s end, from a 10year high of $145 billion in 2019 to about $66 billion this year. The downturn has also cost the state upward of 613,000 industry jobs — more than half of the 1.2 million tallied in 2019.
“It’s nine times worse than 9/11,” in terms of consumer spending, said Caroline Beteta, president and CEO of Visit California. “It basically
pushed us back an entire decade.”
Travel spending in the state isn’t projected to rebound to prepandemic levels until 2024 — and that estimate came before Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision this month to clamp down on counties where the coronavirus is resurging. The widespread shift of California’s counties to the state’s purple tier, “is not surprising,” Beteta said, “but it hits you hard in reality.”
If there’s a shortterm silver lining, it’s that Californians tend to enjoy exploring their own backyard and are expected to forgo bigger trips and travel locally in higher numbers as the pandemic drags on. Residents accounted for more than 70% of instate tourism spending in 2019. Beteta anticipates that portion to grow, even as total spending shrinks.
In the early days of the pandemic, California tourists were opting for national parks, campgrounds and other outdoor destinations. However, Beteta said, recent surveys show people are increasingly returning to the urban areas that power the hospitality and leisure economy — Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego.
One lingering concern about California’s proactive and conservative approach to managing the pandemic relative to other states: The convention market, worth about $65 billion a year to the state, shows no signs of returning.
“It’s a real disaster we are in,” said Rep. Sharon Quirk
Silva, DFullerton (Orange County), who chairs the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media. “It's not just a small hit that we will recover from as soon as things reopen. The recovery is going to be deeper than we can imagine.”
When the state Legislature convenes on Dec. 7, QuirkSilva said she plans to introduce a bill that would provide a pathway for businesses across the state to open safely and help them stay open during the rocky recovery process.
“If we don’t find safe ways to keep our businesses open, California will lose its economy to other states,” QuirkSilva said. She pointed out that Nevada and Arizona have been more permissive about leisure travel and more welcoming of corporate conventions. “If people can’t book here, they are going to go somewhere else.”
Recent news of the possibility of viable COVID19 vaccines and rapid inhome tests becoming widely available in the next six months could offer relief. “Those are game changers for the travel industry,” Beteta said. Projections from market forecaster Tourism Economics indicate that spending in 2021 could bounce back to $102 billion, then grow to $146 billion by 2024.
“I’m looking to March (2021) as the light at the end of the tunnel,” Beteta said.
Gregory Thomas is The San Francisco Chronicle's editor of lifestyle and outdoors. Email: gthomas@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @GregRThomas