- by travelpulse
- 01 Apr 2023
May 1 will not only bring about the start of National Travel and Tourism Week, it'll also kick off California Tourism Month, a statewide celebration of all that the Golden State has to offer as a destination.
Ahead of the occasion, Visit California has just released a new report, prepared by Dean Runyan Associates, which details tourism's economic impact in California for 2021. While last year brought an almost 50-percent increase in visitor spending, the overall results of the research reveal that the sector's recovery is still quite far from complete.
Especially in California's gateway cities-like San Francisco and Los Angeles-travel and hospitality sector revenues continue to fall conspicuously short of pre-pandemic figures. Much of the cause can be attributed to ongoing global travel restrictions and U.S. entry requirements, since these major urban centers typically draw many international travelers, as well as domestic visitors. International tourism spending had, in fact, been California's largest export prior to the pandemic.
Some key findings from the 2021 economic impact report:
- In 2021, visitor spending in California reached $100.2 billion, a 46-percent increase over 2020.
- Tourism-generated tax revenue for state and local governments grew by one-third, to $9.8 billion last year.
- The state's tourism jobs, half of which disappeared in 2020 at the onset of COVID-19, were making their way back slowly in 2021, increasing 6.4 percent to 927,000.
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