San Mateo County’s tourism industry has had a solid performance this summer, with hotel occupancy outperforming last year and international travel rebounding in some markets, from the county visitors’ bureau, named The San Francisco Peninsula.
Along the coastside — which has been struggling to engage its much-needed tourism and hotel market — July hotel occupancy rates were up 3.9% from last July and up 11.9% from the start of the year, Maggie Lang, The San Francisco Peninsula chief sales and marketing officer, said.
“They have been tracking pretty consistent growth every quarter this year,” she said.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, the coast saw a one-year hotel-stay boom in 2022, but that wasn’t reflected in 2023 numbers. 2024 saw a 2% annual occupancy increase from the year prior, with a 57% annual occupancy rate.
And in May, Coastside Chamber of Commerce CEO Krystlyn Giedt said that coastal hotels were still underperforming with key mid-week demographics and corporate groups.
But the summer’s occupancy numbers have been high on the coastside, Lang said, with 70% to 74% hotel occupancy rates during the months of June, July and August.
“Come this year, the coastside is absolutely just booming. It’s really really nice to see,” she said. “I think we’re starting to see return trends in luxury and upper upscale travel.”
Summer hotel occupancy rates in other parts of San Mateo County have been high as well, with 77% to 78% occupancy rates — a 2.2% uptick from last year, Lang said.
Though she noted proximity to the San Francisco International Airport corridor often stabilizes those rates on a non-seasonal basis, there have been standouts — South San Francisco and Brisbane, for example, saw a 9% hotel occupancy rate increase in the month of July.
“It’s looking really solid overall, with certain concentrations — the coastside is seeing extremely strong year-over-year recovery, and the SFO corridor is seeing very very strong performance.”
While international travel from countries like Canada is still down across the state, other international markets, like Japan, are rebounding, Lang said. San Mateo County is generally less impacted by political, social and economically-related travel ebbs and flows due to its position as a gateway county.
“Stay here, go anywhere,” Lang said. “It’s nice to see San Mateo County is stable and we’re seeing that in the numbers. We’re not as impacted by international decisions as some other leisure markets.”
In June, SFO saw roughly 2.5 million arriving passengers — a 9.3% uptick from this time last year — and in July, the airport saw around 2.6 million arriving passengers, a 6.3% uptick.
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