Of the 40 US cities attracting the most overseas visitors, San Jose was the fastest growing. We had 611,000 international visitors in 2017, which is a 25% increase from 2016. Note that these do not include visitors from Canada and Mexico. This compares to a nationwide increase of only 0.7% over the same period. That makes us the 19th metro in the US for international tourism.
San Francisco comes in 5th nationally with 3.4 million international visitors, but they actually saw a decline of 3.6% in the same period.
International visitors have a major impact on the economy measured in the thousands of dollars per single visitor. In fact, one full international flight can contribute a million dollars to the San Jose economy. While we do not rank very highly overall right now in terms of international visitors, the fact that the number is growing rapidly is a good sign.
Source: SJ Economy Blog