According to the calendar, the official start of summer is still weeks away, but that didn’t stop local San Diego leaders from celebrating the arrival of the tourist season Tuesday with the help of some familiar mascots, rollerbladers and a shower of colorful streamers.
The coming Memorial Day weekend marks the start of the summer tourist season, a crucial time of year for the local economy as visitors frequent hotels, theme parks, beaches and restaurants, pumping hundreds of millions of tax dollars into government coffers. The local tourism industry is hoping to top last year’s 31.8 million visitors, which is still short of pre-pandemic numbers, although the $14.3 billion they spent set a new record.
In all, the local $22 billion tourism industry last year brought in $1 billion in sales, property and other tax revenue countywide, including $418 million in room taxes levied on overnight hotel stays.
“Tourism is essential to powering our local economy,” said Mayor Todd Gloria, who joined tourism leaders at Balboa Park to commemorate the season’s start. “Over the past year, tourism generated approximately $1 billion in tax revenues across the county. We put these revenues to work at the city of San Diego to help fund essential services and pay for public infrastructure that directly benefits local residents and businesses.”
This year happens to coincide with several major anniversary milestones in San Diego — the 20th for Petco Park and USS Midway Museum, 25th for Legoland, 35th for the San Diego Convention Center, 55th for Comic-Con International, 60th for SeaWorld San Diego, and 150th for the San Diego Museum of Natural History.
Beyond the 10.5 percent transient occupancy tax that helps fund local services, there is an additional 2 percent surcharge that goes directly toward marketing San Diego as a tourist destination.
The hotelier-run Tourism Marketing District, which oversees the spending of the 2 percent levy, expects to collect $47.3 million in the coming fiscal year. Much of that will go toward funding the San Diego Tourism Authority, which in turn will spend heavily in the coming year on advertising.
Some $28 million has been allocated for a leisure market advertising campaign that will include an expanded focus on more distant markets, such as Chicago and New York.