EDITORIAL: Crime drives visitors away from San Francisco

Crime isn’t a great way to attract tourists. San Francisco is learning that the hard way.

For decades, San Francisco has been one of the most visited places in the country. Landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman’s Wharf have drawn millions of tourists from around the globe. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley technology companies drove innovation. That helped make San Francisco a top destination for business travel. It has even enjoyed some sporting success, with the Golden States Warriors winning an NBA championship in 2022. We won’t gloat over the nearby Oakland teams that decided Las Vegas offered a better future than California.

With tourism booming, hotel evaluations skyrocketed. For instance, Hilton Parc 55 and Hilton San Francisco Union Square are the two largest hotels in the city. As The Wall Street Journal reported, they once were worth more than $1.5 billion. But now they’re valued at just more than $550 million. This isn’t an isolated problem. In June 2023, the city had a 5.7 percent delinquency rate for commercial mortgage-backed security loans in the lodging sector. In June 2024, it had soared to 41.6 percent.

That’s a full-scale crisis.

Hotel values are down because tourism is. San Francisco’s weekend occupancy in June was 22 percent lower than it was in 2019. Nationwide, the decline was just 4 percent. Las Vegas’ visitor volume is approaching pre-pandemic levels. San Francisco’s tourism leaders don’t expect the city’s visitor volume to recover for another four to five years.

That’s bad for everyone, including Bay Area hotel workers. Their hours have been cut. Some are looking for odd jobs.

The city’s hyper left-wing politics have played a large role in this decline. Those who follow the news may have seen reports of brazen retail thefts in San Francisco or flash mobs tearing apart stores. Remember the man who loaded up a garbage bag of items from a Walgreens and rode out on a bicycle? That was in San Francisco. The progressive haven’s lax approach to public safety has had predictable consequences.

“Tourists ‘shocked’ by spree of organized thefts in SF; industry fears crime will deter visitors,” ABC7, a Bay Area TV station, reported in November 2021.

It did.

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

San Francisco is a cautionary tale for Las Vegas. Protecting the visitor experience must be paramount. Las Vegas is one of the most iconic brands in the world, but as the experience of ultra-progressive San Francisco highlights, it won’t stay that way if tourists don’t feel safe.