page_title: Economy of San Diego
section_title: Tourism
hierarchical_section_title: Economy of San Diego / Tourism
caption_attribution_description: English: IMG_3997, Boardwalk, Mission Beach, San Diego, CA Mission Beach
context_page_description: The economy of San Diego — of the city of San Diego and the Greater San Diego area, located in southwestern San Diego County, Southern California. The gross domestic product of Greater San Diego was $206 billion in 2014, 17th largest amongst metro areas in the United States and 4th largest amongst California's metro areas. The economy is also part of the San Diego–Tijuana international metropolitan conurbation.
  The largest sectors of the San Diego's economy are defense/military, tourism, international trade, and research/manufacturing, respectively. In 2014, San Diego was designated by a Forbes columnist as the best city in the country to launch a small business or startup company.
context_section_description: Tourism is a major industry owing to the city's climate, its beaches, and numerous tourist attractions such as Balboa Park, Belmont amusement park, San Diego Zoo, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and SeaWorld San Diego. San Diego's Spanish and Mexican heritage is reflected in the many historic sites across the city, such as Mission San Diego de Alcala and Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. Annual events in San Diego include Comic-Con, the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament, San Diego Pride, the San Diego Black Film Festival, and Street Scene Music Festival. Also, the local craft brewing industry attracts an increasing number of visitors for "beer tours" and the annual San Diego Beer Week in November; San Diego has been called "America's Craft Beer Capital" by San Diego-based author Bruce Glassman.
  San Diego County hosted more than 32 million visitors in 2012, of whom approximately half stayed overnight and half were day visitors; collectively they spent an estimated $8 billion locally, with a regional economic impact of more than $18 billion. The visitor industry provides employment for more than 160,000 people.
  The San Diego Convention Center hosted 68 out-of-town conventions and trade shows in 2009, attracting more than 600,000 visitors. Transient Occupancy Taxes (TOT) have created funding for the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture.
  San Diego's cruise ship industry used to be the second-largest in California. Each cruise ship call injects an estimated $2 million (from the purchase of food, fuel, supplies, and maintenance services, not counting the money spent by the tourists) into the local economy. Numerous cruise lines, including Carnival, Holland America, Celebrity, Crystal and Princess, operate out of San Diego. However, cruise ship business has been in steady decline since peaking in 2008, when the Port hosted over 250 ship calls and more than 900,000 passengers. By 2011 the number of ship calls had fallen to 103 (estimated). Holland America and Carnival Cruises operated weekly cruises to the Mexican Riviera for many years, but both ended their regular scheduled service in spring 2012, which was an economic loss to the region of more than $100 million. The decline is blamed on the slumping economy as well as fear of travel to Mexico due to well-publicized violence there.
  There are local cruises in San Diego Bay and Mission Bay, available through companies such as Hornblower and H&M. These include sightseeing and "sunset" cruises as well as private-event or "party" cruises. Also available are whale watching cruises to observe the migration of tens of thousands of gray whales that pass by San Diego, peaking in mid-January, and year-round sport fishing expeditions.
caption: Mission Beach
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