With the growth in foreign travel by Indians, San Francisco has embarked on a mission to woo visitors to the fourth largest city of California.
The San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, in partnership with the San Francisco International Airport this month, opened a representation office in India to promote San Francisco to the professional travel trade, consumers and media and airlines.
The office in New Delhi makes San Francisco the first, and only CVB and airport to have representation services in India and precedes even the US in having such a service.
The New Delhi office will work with airlines to encourage new services to SF International Airport, generate press coverage of the region and assist the travel trade with information to help generate increased bookings to San Francisco. This includes business travel, technical visits and convention attendance as well as the rapidly growing leisure travel market.
"Having representation in India will heighten the awareness of San Francisco's many attractions and the state-of-the-art facilities at SFO to further develop business and leisure travel and develop new airline service," said Deborah Reinow, vice president tourism for the SFCVB. "We look forward to working closely with airlines and the Indian travel industry to expand this clearly growing market," she said.
It is estimated that outbound travel in 2005 from India was 6.2 million - 65 per cent business and 35 per cent leisure - representing a 15 per cent growth from the previous year. California is the top US destination at 32 per cent, with San Francisco as the second most visited city at 13 per cent, after New York at 28 per cent.
According to a report by the Office of Tourism Industries, 407,000 Indians visited the US in 2006, an increase of 13 per cent over 2005.
This is what has encouraged San Francisco to eye the Indian travel and tourism market.
Many conventions in San Francisco have a very high percentage of international attendees, particularly in the medical, high-tech, and finance sectors. This segment, CVB feels, presents a great opportunity to expand the delegations that come from India for meetings, incentives and conference travel.
It also noted that the recently introduced 'open skies policy' has made it easier for citizens to travel abroad and all major international airlines have added flights and new airlines have commenced operations.
"We look forward to welcoming new non-stop service to SFO from major points in India," said airport director John L Martin.
"And, we are confident that our on-the-ground team in India will assist in this important endeavour. Our new international terminal, opened in 2000, features 24 international gates with easy domestic connections and expedited immigration processing, making International travel easier," he said.
In 2006 visitor spending in San Francisco reached an all-time high of $7.76 billion, an increase of 5.3 per cent over the previous year and an all-time high. The number of visitors to San Francisco in 2006 was 15.8 million, up 0.4 per cent over 2005.
The SFCVB, founded in 1909, is San Francisco's official visitor promotion agency, working to enhance the city's economy by promoting and selling the city as a site for conventions and trade shows and as a destination for pleasure travelers.
