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

3 years 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 March 4 – 10, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 4 – 10, 2026

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

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Chase Oakland Community Center Hosts Alley-Oop Accelerator Building Community and Opportunity for Bay Area Entrepreneurs

Over the past three years, the Alley-Oop Accelerator has helped more than 20 Bay Area businesses grow, connect, and gain meaningful exposure. The program combines hands-on training, mentorship, and community-building to help participants navigate the legal, financial, and marketing challenges of small business ownership.

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3 weeks ago

February 21, 2026

Oakland Post

Bay Area entrepreneurs attend the Alley-Oop Accelerator, a small business incubation program at Chase Oakland Community Center. Photo by Carla Thomas.

By Carla Thomas

The Golden State Warriors and Chase bank hosted the third annual Alley-Oop Accelerator this month, an empowering eight-week program designed to help Bay Area entrepreneurs bring their visions for business to life.

The initiative kicked off on Feb. 12 at Chase’s Oakland Community Center on Broadway Street, welcoming 15 small business owners who joined a growing network of local innovators working to strengthen the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

At its core, the accelerator is designed to create an ecosystem of collaboration, where local entrepreneurs can learn from one another while accessing the resources of a global financial institution.

“This is our third year in a row working with the Golden State Warriors on the Alley-Oop Accelerator,” said Jaime Garcia, executive director of Chase’s Coaching for Impact team for the West Division. “We’ve already had 20-plus businesses graduate from the program, and we have 15 enrolled this year. The biggest thing about the program is really the community that’s built amongst the business owners — plus the exposure they’re able to get through Chase and the Golden State Warriors.”

According to Garcia, several graduates have gone on to receive vendor contracts with the Warriors and have gained broader recognition through collaborations with JPMorgan Chase.

“A lot of what Chase is trying to do,” Garcia added, “is bring businesses together because what they’ve asked for is an ecosystem, a network where they can connect, grow, and thrive organically.”

This year’s Alley-Oop Accelerator reflects that vision through its comprehensive curriculum and emphasis on practical learning. Participants explore the full spectrum of business essentials including financial management, marketing strategy, and legal compliance, while also preparing for real-world experiences such as pop-up market events.

Each entrepreneur benefits from one-on-one mentoring sessions through Chase’s Coaching for Impact program, which provides complimentary, personalized business consulting.

Garcia described the impact this hands-on approach has had on local small business owners. He recalled one candlemaker, who, after participating in the program, was invited to provide candles as gifts at Chase events.

“We were able to help give that business exposure,” he explained. “But then our team also worked with them on how to access capital to buy inventory and manage operations once those orders started coming in. It’s about preparation. When a hiccup happens, are you ready to handle it?”

The Coaching for Impact initiative, which launched in 2020 in just four cities, has since expanded to 46 nationwide.

“Every business is different,” Garcia said. “That’s why personal coaching matters so much. It’s life-changing.”

Participants in the 2026 program will each receive a $2,500 stipend, funding that Garcia said can make an outsized difference. “It’s amazing what some people can do with just $2,500,” he noted. “It sounds small, but it goes a long way when you have a plan for how to use it.”

For Chase and the Warriors, the Alley-Oop Accelerator represents more than an educational initiative, it’s a pathway to empowerment and economic inclusion. The program continues to foster lasting relationships among the entrepreneurs who, as Garcia put it, “build each other up” through shared growth and opportunity.

“Starting a business is never easy, but with the right support, it becomes possible, and even exhilarating,” said Oscar Lopez, the senior business consultant for Chase in Oakland.