San Francisco is desperately trying to court tourists back to the Bay Area after years of making headlines for all the wrong reasons —but the city’s latest ad campaign is raising eyebrows.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports the ad is part of a $6 million dollar ad buy and is the first of its kind in the city’s history.
From The Chronicle:
The ads will appear in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston and Houston markets, running through Oct. 22. The campaign will also include digital advertising in Australia, India, the Asian Pacific region, Europe, Canada and Mexico. And a U.S. travel giveaway contest featuring five local experiences will be held in the coming months. It’s expected to reach 193 million people.
The campaign follows a partial recovery in tourism last year, with spending more than doubling compared with 2021, to $7.4 billion. Major conferences and events, like Dreamforce and the Outside Lands music festival, returned in full force. But a slew of high-profile crime incidents this year and a string of retail closures in the tourist-heavy Powell Street area have dampened the city’s image as the busy summer travel season arrives.
In the ad, San Fran’s drug-infested streets and homeless population are, of course, absent. Instead, the ad focuses on choreographed dance numbers, drag queens, and landmarks that have not been overrun by crime.
The voiceover says it’s the “most beautiful city in the world.”
Watch the ad above.
Will this ad lure tourists back to the San Francisco after years of decay and crime? https://t.co/eTvVkY4VBp
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 31, 2023
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