From atop the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in a video released Sunday that spending on tourism in California reached an all-time high of $150.4 billion last year.
That figure surpassed the pre-pandemic record $144.9 billion, which was recorded in 2019.
San Diego also had a record-breaking total when it comes to dollars spent by tourists in 2023: Julie Coker, chief executive officer of the San Diego tourism Authority, told NBC 7 that $14.3 billion was spent in San Diego by tourists last fiscal year.
That total is roughly a billion more dollars than last year and $2.7 billion more than in 2019.
Those figures, however, don’t take into account for inflation.
For local businesses that struggled during the lean COVID years, the 2023 financial figures are a needed bounce back regardless.
“To come back this strong post-Covid and to do it earlier than projected means everything to small businesses and neighborhoods,”…