☆ Expert: “Busy” SJ hotel industry could procure business that SF squandered

It's no secret that SF's once-booming hotel market faces a downhill plunge post Covid. Owners struggle to fill rooms amid rampant crime and filthy streets. But is San Jose's tourism industry headed for the same “gloomy” fate as SF? The San Francisco Business Times' hospitality reporter Alex Barreira shares, in this Opp Now exclusive, why less supply constraints and better street conditions could spell victory for SJ's local hotel market.

San Jose relies more on corporate travel compared to SF, so companies' policies related to business travel cutbacks would have more impact there. But SJ’s market is much less supply constrained than SF, and Santa Clara County has been one of the busiest places for building new hotels in recent years despite how expensive labor and materials are. A lot of hotels are serving biotech and regular tech interests along the peninsula. Their convention and tourism business pales compared to SF. I could see more conventions trying out San Jose as an alternative to the street conditions of SF, especially if the new Signia (former Fairmont hotel, rebranded coming out of bankruptcy) operators are successful at making a play for that audience.

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Image by EugeneZelenko