Bay Area

Hotel Industry to Hire 1,200 Employees In Hopes of A Busy Tourism Season

As San Francisco leaders make plans to revive the Union Square shopping district, hotels in the city want to fill 1,200 jobs. During a joint press conference Tuesday at a downtown hotel, national, state and local hospitality leaders said they have high hopes for a bustling summer tourism season as the industry makes a slow recovery from COVID-19 lockdowns.

Published

1 year ago

April 2, 2023

Oakland Post

CEO of Union Square Alliance Marisa Rodriguez presents a five-prong plan to revitalize Union Square on Nov. 22, 2022. (Olivia Wynkoop/Bay City News)

By Olivia Wynkoop
Bay City News

As San Francisco leaders make plans to revive the Union Square shopping district, hotels in the city want to fill 1,200 jobs.

During a joint press conference Tuesday at a downtown hotel, national, state and local hospitality leaders said they have high hopes for a bustling summer tourism season as the industry makes a slow recovery from COVID-19 lockdowns.

The city’s hotel occupancy rate remains down by 24 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels, but the tourism sector is optimistic that as international travel restrictions ease up, group tourism reawakens and conferences come back to the city, downtown will be vibrant once again.

To accommodate the projected uptick in visitors and conference attendees, the industry wants to recruit and retain hotel workers by providing above-average-wage jobs with benefits and career pathways.

The announcement comes on the heels of Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Aaron Peskin introducing legislation Monday that aims to turn Union Square’s vacant retail storefronts into dynamic spaces. If passed, the building code policies would change so multi-level buildings can become office spaces, restaurants and retail stores all at once.

“The challenges facing downtown require us to imagine what is possible and create the foundation for a stronger, more resilient future,” Breed said.

After roughly 18 months of lockdown restrictions, San Francisco’s 200-plus hotels lost a large portion of their 25,000-person workforce — at the pandemic’s peak, the industry lost about 70 percent of its workers. Today, the workforce is about 75 to 80 percent of what it was before the pandemic, said Hotel Council of San Francisco president & CEO Alex Bastian.

“We are looking at really growing again, we’re looking at bringing back this community to the position it was before and to take it even further than that,” Bastian said.

Bastian said now is the time to double down on hospitality, especially as tech and finance industries are facing hardship. Tourism is an industry that provided about $440 million in direct tax revenue in 2019, and returning to those numbers could directly improve the city’s overall conditions, he said.

“We go through earthquakes, we go through pandemics we go through tech bubbles; and every time we go through whatever challenge it may be, we always come back better,” Bastian said. “We always come back stronger. And that’s what we’re going to do collectively in this room, and that’s what we’re going to do as San Franciscans.”

California Hotel & Lodging Association president & CEO Lynn Mohrfeld said he’s “very pleased” with how San Francisco is working to recover from the pandemic, which hit hotels hard throughout the state’s major cities. Throughout the country, people were not seeking out urban destinations with so much uncertainty about the virus, he said.

“Our success in the hospitality industry is tethered to the vibrancy of the city,” Mohrfeld said.

Hotel revitalization also goes hand in hand with reducing office vacancies and bringing San Franciscans back to Union Square, said Union Square Alliance CEO Marisa Rodriguez. She said she wants residents to feel like Union Square is their “living room.”

“When local hotels are thriving, so are Union Square businesses,” Rodriguez said. “That’s because hotel guests support local shops, restaurants and other small businesses when they visit San Francisco. We are excited to partner with hotel and city leaders to ensure our beloved downtown achieves its full potential.”

To learn more about available hotel jobs, residents can visit a job fair at the Ferry Building scheduled for April 12, put on by the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

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Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

Published

7 days ago

April 26, 2024

Oakland Post

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Alameda County

DA Pamela Price Stands by Mom Who Lost Son to Gun Violence in Oakland

Last week, The Post published a photo showing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones, whose son, Patrick DeMarco Scott, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2018.

Published

2 weeks ago

April 22, 2024

Oakland Post

District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones

Publisher’s note: Last week, The Post published a photo showing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones, whose son, Patrick DeMarco Scott, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2018. The photo was too small for readers to see where the women were and what they were doing. Here we show Price and Jones as they complete a walk in memory of Scott. For more information and to contribute, please contact Carol Jones at 510-978-5517 at morefoundation.help@gmail.com. Courtesy photo.

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Bay Area

State Controller Malia Cohen Keynote Speaker at S.F. Wealth Conference

California State Controller Malia Cohen delivered the keynote speech to over 50 business women at the Black Wealth Brunch held on March 28 at the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center at 301 Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco. The Enterprising Women Networking SF Chapter of the American Business Women’s Association (ABWA) hosted the Green Room event to launch its platform designed to close the racial wealth gap in Black and Brown communities.

Published

2 weeks ago

April 20, 2024

Oakland Post

American Business Women’s Association Vice President Velma Landers, left, with California State Controller Malia Cohen (center), and ABWA President LaRonda Smith at the Enterprising Women Networking SF Chapter of the ABWA at the Black Wealth Brunch.

By Carla Thomas

The Enterprising Women Networking SF Chapter of the American Business Women’s Association (ABWA) hosted the Green Room event to launch its platform designed to close the racial wealth gap in Black and Brown communities.

“Our goal is to educate Black and Brown families in the masses about financial wellness, wealth building, and how to protect and preserve wealth,” said ABWA San Francisco Chapter President LaRonda Smith.

ABWA’s mission is to bring together businesswomen of diverse occupations and provide opportunities for them to help themselves and others grow personally and professionally through leadership, education, networking support, and national recognition.

“This day is about recognizing influential women, hearing from an accomplished woman as our keynote speaker and allowing women to come together as powerful people,” said ABWA SF Chapter Vice President Velma Landers.

More than 60 attendees dined on the culinary delights of Chef Sharon Lee of The Spot catering, which included a full soul food brunch of skewered shrimp, chicken, blackened salmon, and mac and cheese.

Cohen discussed the many economic disparities women and people of color face. From pay equity to financial literacy, Cohen shared not only statistics, but was excited about a new solution in motion which entailed partnering with Californians for Financial Education.

“I want everyone to reach their full potential,” she said. “Just a few weeks ago in Sacramento, I partnered with an organization, Californians for Financial Education.

“We gathered 990 signatures and submitted it to the [California] Secretary of State to get an initiative on the ballot that guarantees personal finance courses for every public school kid in the state of California.

“Every California student deserves an equal opportunity to learn about filing taxes, interest rates, budgets, and understanding the impact of credit scores. The way we begin to do that is to teach it,” Cohen said.

By equipping students with information, Cohen hopes to close the financial wealth gap, and give everyone an opportunity to reach their full financial potential. “They have to first be equipped with the information and education is the key. Then all we need are opportunities to step into spaces and places of power.”

Cohen went on to share that in her own upbringing, she was not guided on financial principles that could jump start her finances. “Communities of color don’t have the same information and I don’t know about you, but I did not grow up listening to my parents discussing their assets, their investments, and diversifying their portfolio. This is the kind of nomenclature and language we are trying to introduce to our future generations so we can pivot from a life of poverty so we can pivot away and never return to poverty.”

Cohen urged audience members to pass the initiative on the November 2024 ballot.

“When we come together as women, uplift women, and support women, we all win. By networking and learning together, we can continue to build generational wealth,” said Landers. “Passing a powerful initiative will ensure the next generation of California students will be empowered to make more informed financial decisions, decisions that will last them a lifetime.”