Despite inflation and the cost of travel, more people visited San Diego this year than last, according to new numbers released by the San Diego Tourism Authority (SDTA) this week.
“San Diego’s tourism economy is really built on the meetings market, the conventions market, and leisure travel,” said Kerri Kapich, COO of SDTA.
Kapich shared that SDTA is celebrating its 70th year and San Diego’s continued rebound from the pandemic.
“San Diego’s been very fortunate. Through the pandemic, we saw devastating losses. Fifty percent of our employees were out of work, and that took our tourism economy back 20 years,” she said.
Prepandemic, San Diego had about 35 million annual visitors. In fiscal year 2024, the region has hosted approximately 32 million visitors — up two million from the year prior.
Kapich says all those visitors resulted in an economic impact of about $22 billion, and some of that revenue gets directly invested in things like public safety.
“There’s a hotel tax that is charged. That tax goes into city coffers. The city is using that for police, fire and essential services, parks and recreation.”
Kapich added that SDTA has its sights set on even more growth heading into 2025, hoping to increase the number of international visitors to the region specifically.
