Crime drives visitors away from San Francisco | Editorial

Crime is not a good way to attract tourists. San Francisco is learning that the hard way.

San Francisco has been one of the most visited places in the country for decades. Landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman's Wharf attract millions of tourists from around the world. At the same time, Silicon Valley tech companies have been driving innovation. That's helped make San Francisco a top destination for business travel. It's even had some sporting success: The Golden States Warriors won an NBA championship in 2022. We're not going to brag about the nearby Oakland teams that decided Las Vegas offered a better future than California.

As tourism boomed, hotel valuations soared. For example, the Hilton Parc 55 and the Hilton San Francisco Union Square are the city's two largest hotels. As the Wall Street Journal reported, they were once worth more than $1.5 billion. But now they're worth just over $550 million. This is not an isolated problem. In June 2023, the city had a 5.7 percent default rate on commercial mortgage-backed securities loans in the lodging sector. In June 2024, it had risen to 41.6 percent.

This is a crisis of great proportions.

Hotel rates are falling because tourism is falling. Weekend occupancy in San Francisco was 22 percent lower in June than in 2019. Nationwide, the decline was only 4 percent. Visitor volume in Las Vegas is approaching pre-pandemic levels. San Francisco tourism officials do not expect the city's visitor volume to recover for at least four to five years.

This is bad for everyone, including hotel workers in the Bay Area. Their working hours have been cut. Some are looking for odd jobs.

The city's far-left politics have played a large role in this decline. If you follow the news, you may have heard reports of brazen shoplifting in San Francisco or flash mobs tearing apart stores. Remember the man who filled a garbage bag with items from a Walgreens and rode away on his bicycle? That was in San Francisco. The progressive haven's lax approach to public safety had predictable consequences.

“Tourists 'shocked' by string of organized thefts in San Francisco; industry fears crime will deter visitors,” ABC7, a Bay Area television station, reported in November 2021.

It did.

“San Francisco's bad reputation is killing tourism across the Bay Area,” SFGate wrote last March. It's so bad that fewer and fewer people are driving to Sonoma County, which is 45 miles from San Francisco.

San Francisco is a warning for Las Vegas. Protecting the visitor experience must be a top priority. Las Vegas is one of the most recognized brands in the world, but as the experience in ultra-progressive San Francisco shows, it won't stay that way if tourists don't feel safe.