Chinese tourists noticeably absent from San Francisco, numbers show
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- San Francisco saw a lot of tourists over the 4th of July holiday. But Chinese tourists have still not come back to the numbers the city saw prior to the pandemic. China was once San Francisco's top international market.
When the Chinese government lifted all COVID-19 restrictions at the beginning of this year,
San Francisco thought Chinese tourists would flood into San Francisco. Except that, it hasn't happened.
In 2019, prior to the pandemic, China was San Francisco's top international market with 500,000 visitors spending $1.2 billion a year.
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Some local travel agents are blaming it, in part, on the current tense relationship between China and the U.S.
"About the politics, OK, that's why a lot of people are not coming in. It's not the first choice. They might be dropping to the 50th, 60th choice coming to San Francisco," said Edward Siu of Classic Tours in San Francisco.
It doesn't help that the State Department is now recommending that Americans reconsider traveling to China after a 78-year-old U.S. citizen was sentenced to life in prison on spying charges in May.
Another reason why people in that region aren't traveling to the U.S. is that there is a backlog of tourist visas, and not enough flights to get here.
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"If we travel abroad, it costs us much travel, and we need a lot of documents to be here," said Yating Lin who was visiting from Taiwan.
On a positive note, in November, San Francisco will host the annual APEC summit where 21 economies from the Asia Pacific region will converge here.
"Japan has a hotel, China has a hotel. People are coming here in November, and we hope that that starts to restore a lot of the confidence from the continent of Asia of people coming back to San Francisco to visit," said San Francisco Mayor London Breed
That means travel groups from China and other parts of the region are expected to begin making their way here in 2024 at the earliest.
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