Wrong data

I found the data for San Francisco visitors' dollar and number. The surprise for me is that I have been misreading this number for a long time. My definition of a visitor is significantly different from the San Francisco Visitors Bureau.

In my head there are roughly 16,000,000 visitors who spend roughly $9 billion. But it turns out that people coming from the rest of the Bay Area, for the Symphony or for a good dinner are also considered visitors.

If you sit next to one of these people on an airplane coming from a long distance, say Hong Kong, they will tell you they come from San Francisco. They in fact could come from any of the suburbs up to 70 miles away. They would never define themselves as tourists.

So the correct number is really 11 million visitors spending only $8 billion.

My longtime concern, the amount of business that is driven away from San Francisco because of the homeless and beggars in tourist areas should be modified because these people who are Bay Area residents have homeless people on their doorsteps too. They may want to visit San Francisco without seeing and being abused by the homeless but it is not going to affect their behavior.

My basic concern about the way homeless people in tourist areas are driving away business in large numbers remains. Tourists can always go to Disneyland and live without homeless and intrusive beggars.