Interview: San Francisco Tourism CEO on Getting in Bed With Airbnb
Photo Credit: An Airbnb listing in San Francisco's Mission District. Airbnb
Skift Take
San Francisco is at the forefront of showing how tourism bureaus, which rely on hotel bed taxes for funding, can collaborate with room-sharing companies that are in direct competition with hotels.
For Super Bowl 50 in San Francisco last weekend, an estimated 15,000 visitors stayed with over 5,000 Airbnb hosts located in over 40 area municipalities.
That represents a 400% increase over the total volume of Airbnb bookings during Super Bowl weekend last year in Phoenix. The data also suggests that the room-sharing company helped drive visitation to areas outside the heavily trafficked hotel zone in and around San Francisco’s financial district.
Despite the numbers provided by Airbnb, price-gouging more commonly associated with hotels during big events took place too. Or at least tried to.
Spreading tourism dollars in wider circles throughout a destination is one of the primary functions of tourism bureaus such as San Francisco Travel. In July 2015, the bureau was the first ever to announce a formal partnership with Airbnb, based on the fact that Airbnb charges additional fees to contribute to the city’s transient occupancy fund (bed tax), albeit on a self-rep
