Tourism

• Tourism is San Francisco's #1 industry.
• Over 16 million visitors to the city each year spend over $6.5billion dollars annually.
• Each visitor spends an average of $123.58 a day.
Most popular attractions:
•  Fisherman’s Wharf (visited by 81% of tourists)
•  Chinatown (visited by 74% of tourists)
•  Golden Gate Bridge (visited by 73% of tourists)
•  Union Square (visited by 65% of tourists)
•  Cable Cars (visited by 65% of tourists)
•  Golden Gate Park (visited by 56% of tourists)
Visitor Profile:

•  Median Age: 37
•  Median Household Income:  $65,900
•  Average Length of stay in SF: 4.5 nights
•  First time visitors:  46%
•  Those who have visited 5 or more times:  20%
Purpose of Visit:

•  Leisure/Vacation 44%
•  Meeting/Convention 30%
•  Individual Business 25%
•  Enroute 1%

San Francisco Visitor's Points of Origin

Domestic

•  Pacific West 36%
•  Northeast 16%
•  South Atlantic 13%
•  Mountain West 10%
•  South Central 10%
•  North Central 5%
International

•  Europe/United Kingdom 45%
•  Asia 31%
•  Canada 9%
•  Australia/New Zealand 5%
•  Central/South America 5%
•  Mexico 3%
•  Middle East/Africa 2%

Business

San Francisco is home to:

•  52,000 businesses of which 96% have 50 or fewer employees, 4% have over 50 employees.  6% of the businesses have over 100 employees.
•  70 consulates and trade offices.
•  Over 30 of the world’s largest banks with combined total assets of over $382 billion (this figure may not be accurate based on interstate reporting requirements).
•  Over 70 airlines, of which 25 are overseas carriers.
•  The only deepwater port in the Bay Area.

Top San Francisco Public Companies

Company

Industry

Employees

AirTouch

Communications

8,800

BankAmerica Corporation

Banking

80,360

Chevron Corporation

Oil

124,600

Gap, Inc.

Apparel

N/A

McKesson Corporation

Pharmaceuticals

13,700

Pacific Gas & Electric

Utilities

23,300

Transamerica Corporation

Insurance

8,700

Wells Fargo & Company

Banking

57,036
*Source:  San Francisco Business Times 2000 Book of Lists.

Additional Facts

• 30,000 attorneys practice in the Bay Area making it the 2nd largest legal community in the United States.
•  San Francisco is the 6th largest advertising market in the United States with San Francisco agencies billing over $5 billion in 1998 according to Advertising Age.
•  The largest number of independent film and video producers per capita in the United States live in San Francisco.
•  With 645 companies and over 80,000 employees the San Francisco Bay Area has the largest biotechnology cluster in the state.
•  There are over 3,500 restaurants and drinking establishments and 30,000 hotel rooms in San Francisco.  Residents and visitors spend an average of $2,540 per household in restaurants.
•  There are over 13,000 retail establishments in San Francisco with sales totaling over $7.5 billion annually.
•  San Francisco is the 3rd largest apparel-producing region in the United States with more than 500 apparel manufacturers employed here.
•  San Francisco International Airport is the 5th busiest airport in the nation with an average daily passenger total of over 108,000 and an annual total of 40 million passengers.
•  99% of the Bay Area’s international cargo goes through San Francisco Airport.
•  Trade (imports and exports) passing through the Port of San Francisco in 1999, totaled $72,106,614,645.

Measured by dollar amount the city’s top five trading partners were:
•  Japan - $14,865,480,163
•  Korea - $9,197,161,666
•  Singapore - $8,422,078,448
•  China/Taiwan - $6,736,876,294
•  Malaysia – $5,515,970,708

• 80,000 passengers per year pass through the Port of San Francisco with over 50 cruises calling at the Port annually.
•  Businesses with 50 or more employees account for 63% of the private-sector.
•  In fiscal 1998/1999, business taxes totaled $234 million
•  There are 565,300 jobs in San Francisco.
•  Of these jobs, 50.3% of San Francisco are held by residents.
•  Approximately 259,000 people commute into San Francisco to work (48%).
•  35.1% of San Francisco adults hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.
•  An average of 691,118 people ride SF Muni daily with an additional 250,000 riding BART daily.

Wage Comparison

City Accountant Administrative Assistant Computer Programmer Electrical Engineer Graphic Designer Market Analyst System Analyst

San Francisco

$50,198 $38,503 $50,333 $65,587 $41,473 $48,375 $62,800

Atlanta

$42,970 $32,110 $43,097 $57,903 $34,869 $41,278 $55,148

Austin

$41,324 $30,484 $41,449 $56,307 $33,238 $39,634 $53,536

Boston

$46,769 $35,524 $46,899 $62,033 $38,381 $46,016 $59,218

Chicago

$46,319 $35,074 $46,449 $61,505 $37,931 $44,566 $58,720

Denver

$44,597 $33,516 $44,725 $59,476 $36,331 $42,870 $56,746

Los Angeles

$48,351 $36,853 $48,484 $63,795 $39,774 $46,559 $60,969

New York

$49,577 $37,750 $49,714 $65,312 $40,754 $47,733 $62,448

San Diego

$45,015 $33,956 $45,143 $60,160 $36,766 $43,291 $57,378

San Jose

$50,055 $38,283 $50,191 $65,647 $41,274 $48,220 $62,813

Seattle

$46,955 $35,830 $47,084 $61,932 $38,656 $45,221 $59,197
*Source:  San Francisco Business Times 2000 Book of Lists. 

Travel Time to Work

Average 25.86 minutes
Less than 10 minutes 7.05%
10-19 minutes  25.50%
20-29 minutes 23.30%
30-44 minutes 27.28%
45-59 minutes 9.66%
60-89 minutes 5.71%
90 or more minutes 1.49%