The first time I went to San Francisco, I was a high school journalist there for a student media conference.
I wish I could say I remember the hotel we stayed in, but I definitely remember all the things about the city that made me want to come back.
I grew up in a suburb west of Cleveland and didn't travel much, so San Francisco was the first "big city" I had ever seen, and it blew my mind. I loved the cable cars, the touristy Fisherman's Wharf and Chinatown as well as the arcade at the then-somewhat new Sony Metreon building. I remember being disappointed at how expensive clothing boutiques seemed to sully the hippie legacy of Haight-Ashbury, a neighborhood we definitely didn't skip part of the conference to see.
Forever burned into my memory is seeing a band playing one night on a street corner near the hotel where we stayed. The guitarist was dressed like Jimi Hendrix, and the drummer lit his drumsticks on fire.
I loved San Francisco so much that I somehow talked my wife, then-fiancee, into going there for our honeymoon. We had a wonderful time, and she especially loved the wine tasting she did in our short visit to nearby Sausalito.
All of this is to say that it was heartbreaking to hear about all the troubles San Francisco has been going through, before, during and after the pandemic.
So when Hotel News Now and CoStar News worked out an idea for a San Francisco market report, it was refreshing to hear that our angle wasn't going to be more about the city's "doom loop." Instead, the focus would be on the city's future and what it would take to recover.
For this story package, I was able to go to San Francisco along with CoStar News' Katie Burke, who grew up in the Bay Area and covered it extensively in her years as a journalist. Her expertise in the city really helped me better understand the different dynamics at play.
Along with the many interviews we conducted ahead of time, we spent nearly a week in the city in late July. While that by no means makes me an expert on all-things San Francisco, it was incredibly useful to speak with hotel general managers in-person and see for myself that conditions in San Francisco were not as apocalyptic as some news reports made it out to be.
After months of interviews, travel, writing and collaboration, we present the San Francisco story package, which published earlier this week. I'm not one usually to self-promote, but we worked hard on this, and I'm proud of the stories that came out of it.
Please give them all a read, and check out the podcast Katie and I recorded talking about our experience in the city. Also make sure to read CoStar National Director for Hospitality Market Analytics Jan Freitag's take on the city as well.
For your reading and listening pleasure:
- Beyond the Doom: San Francisco Stakeholders Bet on Slow Road to Recovery
- Poor Public Image, Lack of Citywide Event Compression Frustrate San Francisco Hoteliers
- Investor Interest in San Francisco Hotel Market Requires Long-Term View
- Listen to the Story Behind Our San Francisco Report
- The Case for San Francisco's Hotel Market
After this story package, I can absolutely say that San Francisco has a lot of work it needs to do to make it back to what it used to be. However, the foundation of what makes the city a place where people want to live, work and visit still exists, and I believe it can recover and even surpass its previous highs.
You can reach me at bwroten@hotelnewsnow.com as well as LinkedIn.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.