SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Tourism for the state and the capital city is up as more and more people look at California and Sacramento as a destination for vacation.
Gov. Gavin Newsom took to social media recently to announce record breaking tourism numbers in the state from atop the Golden Gate Bridge.
“Our record breaking tourism numbers last year $150 million of investment from tourists around the globe coming to the great state of California,” he said in a video.
But closer to home where the bridge is actually golden, Sacramento tourism is also on the rise.
According to Visit Sacramento CEO Mike Testa, the bump in tourism is directly related to hosting events.
“The hotel tax collection pre pandemic was $32 million now they are up to $37 million,” said Testa.
Sacramento County is generating $4 billion in visitor spending — including things like food and transportation.
The increased revenue also comes from higher hotel rates because demand itself is higher.
Last year 332,000 thousand rooms were booked. Testa says it’s the largest number in decades and the success is attributed mostly to the capitol city playing host to a many events.
“Aftershock, the biggest hard rock festival in the U.S.; Golden Sky, a two day festival we started two years ago, will go to three days this year; Farm to Fork certainly a draw; a number of smaller events; Sol Blume last year was a big draw, but sadly canceled this year,” said Testa.
And the city is only planning to host more events. Visit Sacramento says something in the works is a Hula Festival.
This weekend the memorial auditorium is also home to the Terre Madre Americas, one of the biggest food conferences in the world. Sacramento is the first American city to host.
Emanuele Dughera flew in from Milan, Italy with his coffee production team for it.
“We are from Italy bringing the idea of having good, clean fair coffee,” said Dughera.
Normally hosted in Italy, the festival has drawn crowds of thousands.
Another contributing factor to increased tourism: business conventions.
While other states have struggled, California and Sacramento have added more conventions. Though attendance is overall lower than before the pandemic.
Visit Sacramento says there's now significant intertest in hotel development due to the demand and with the A’s now playing in West Sacramento, there's additional increased interest.
