From masks to money: California travelers wrestle with new frustrations

Just as tourists began tucking away their masks and hitting the road again, inflationary pressures started to put the kibosh on travel plans, or at the very least, dampen travelers’ spirits, according to a national travel research firm.

“Throughout the year, it looks like we've had a slow degradation in travel activity,” said David Bratton, founder and managing director of San Francisco-based Destination Analysts, a national travel research firm. “It hasn't been dramatic, but it's definitely been moving in the direction we don't want it to go, and especially with all the pandemic metrics looking so good.”

According to the firm’s most recent survey released Sept. 7, when asked about the top impediments to travel, respondents identified gas prices (45.6%), travel costs (40.8%) and personal finances (35.5%). Destination Analysts’ findings were collected from more than 4,000 American travelers between Aug. 15 and Aug. 21, 2022.

These concerns have been exacerbated by frustrations with service issues across the airline industry and tourism-facing businesses, Destination Analysts’ September survey found. One in 10 travelers in the survey reported reconsidering their fall travel plans because of those frustrations, Bratton said.

However, these complaints have yet to dampen the upward trend of visitor spending as the pandemic wanes, according to Visit California’s July research report, released Aug. 8.

Monthly travel spending across the state since the pandemic began, data show that visitor spending in March 2020 totaled $5.9 billion, down 55% from March 2019. But in June 2022, spending reached $13.7 billion, just 3% less than June 2019, according to Visit California, citing data from Tourism Economics.

Visit California’s report also showed that air travel across the state slowed a bit in July, averaging 15.9 million travelers per week. Weekly counts that month were down 11% to 14% relative to 2019.

But there is one airport in California that is most important to the North Bay’s tourism industry and that’s San Francisco International Airport (SFO), which is the main gateway to wine country for domestic and international travelers alike.

The San Francisco airport has come back strong from the depths of the pandemic, according to the San Francisco Travel Association, which on Aug. 24 held its annual visitor and lodging forecast forum.

SFO projects it will fly more than 40 million passengers this year, up about 16 million from the 24 million passengers flown last year, according to San Francisco Travel. The airport is projecting it will return to 2019 passenger levels between 2024 and 2026.

“What we've seen historically is about a quarter of people that come to San Francisco, for leisure trips or business, end up going up to wine country,” said Destination Analysts’ Bratton, who for a decade served as research director at San Francisco Travel. “So, the two are locked together in a relationship that's really important to each other. Anything that hurts San Francisco travel is going to hurt wine country travel.”

Meanwhile, year-over-year hotel occupancy rates in the North Bay’s four largest counties — Napa, Sonoma, Marin and Solano — have been improving this year, according to travel industry data firm STR’s July data, the most recent available.

As of July, Napa County had an occupancy rate of 67.2%, down 9.6% from a year earlier, but year-to-date revenue totaled $322 million, a 63.5% jump from July 2021, according to STR.

Sonoma County’s occupancy rate in July was 72.2%, down 5.9% from July 2021, but total revenue climbed 33.8% from the year prior, to $234 million, according to the figures.

The occupancy rate in Marin County in July was 78.2%, a 1.4% increase from a year earlier. Total hotel revenue for the county as of July had climbed 43.4%, to $76 million, according to the numbers.

And Solano County’s occupancy rate in July was 71.5%, down 0.9% from July 2021. Year-to-date revenue was up 1.8%, to $66 million, according to STR.

Overall, visitor growth for the entire San Francisco Bay Area region, including the Peninsula, the East Bay, Marin County, and wine country’s Napa and Sonoma counties, is forecast to be up 21.4% by the close of 2022, according to San Francisco Travel.

"We are clearly on the road to recovery, but we still have a way to go before we will reach pre-pandemic tourism levels,” Joe D’Alessandro, San Francisco Travel’s president and CEO, said in an Aug. 24 statement.

Cheryl Sarfaty covers tourism, hospitality, health care and employment. She previously worked for a Gannett daily newspaper in New Jersey and NJBIZ, the state’s business journal. Cheryl has freelanced for business journals in Sacramento, Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge. Reach her at cheryl.sarfaty@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4259.