Editor’s Note: With the World Cup driving a surge in local tourism, SMDP will publish several stories this week about the city’s relationship with visitors. The first looks at the city’s current boom and precipitous fall from pre-pandemic peaks.
While Santa Monica is known for its great weather, the city has endured several years of stormy economic seas and while officials are quick to tout the recent success of World Cup tourism, the city’s long-term visitor numbers remain bleak.
Santa Monica has seen an undeniable surge in tourists for games, watch parties and activations tied to the international tournament.
According to City Manager Oliver Chi, Since the tournament began June 11, the city has welcomed hundreds of thousands of fans to various watch parties and activations. He said early economic indicators were also positive. Foot traffic on the Promenade has run approximately 40% above year-ago levels. The Big Blue Bus provided more than 5,000 rides to and from matches at SoFi Stadium through special direct service coordinated with Metro.
Parking revenue has reflected the increase in visitors. Beach parking generated more than $969,000 over the tournament's first 13 days, up 44% over the same period last year and above both 2023 and 2024 levels. Downtown parking brought in more than $624,000 over the same stretch, a 40% increase over the prior year, as peak occupancy reached 4,111 vehicles, up nearly 28%.
The crowds that recently filled the Pier and local sports bars have left the city with a largely positive economic impression. According to Santa Monica Travel and Tourism, 93% of social posts mentioning the City and World Cup are “positive” and the boost comes as a wave of restaurant news, including the opening of the TMNT pizzeria, Raising Cane’s and the proposed Taco Bell Cantina has pushed the city back into the limelight.
Positive press comes as a welcome change for a city that had lost its economic footing in recent years due to the Covid pandemic, Federal policies, wildfires and local impacts of crime, homelessness and traffic.
City attracts half as many visitors
Santa Monica's tourism industry generated nearly $1 billion in visitor spending last year, driven largely by a surge in high-spending international travelers but the city remains in a prolonged period of visitor volume far below its pre-COVID peak.
According to Santa Monica Travel & Tourism’s annual report, the city attracted 3.89 million visitors — an 8% decline from the 4.22 million recorded in 2024. More significantly, that figure represents less than half of the 8.71 million visitors Santa Monica drew at its peak in 2017, a benchmark the city has not approached in the eight years since.
The city last crossed the 8 million visitor threshold in 2019, recording 8.41 million arrivals. The pandemic year of 2020 collapsed total visitation to 2.03 million. While the recovery years of 2021 and 2022 brought meaningful rebounds, the trajectory has pointed steadily downward since a post-pandemic high of 5.32 million in 2022, with each subsequent year recording fewer visitors than the last.
Total visitor days — a metric calculated by multiplying visitor volume by average length of stay — fell to 5.34 million in 2025, down 9% from 5.87 million in 2024 and far below the 11.85 million recorded at the city's 2017 peak.
Regional Comparisons
Santa Monica's struggles to bring back visitors stand in stark contrast to other Southern California destinations. San Diego saw roughly 32 million visitors in fiscal 2024 — about 90% of its pre-pandemic peak. Santa Barbara hosted 6.5 million visitors in 2023 who spent $2.24 billion, matching or exceeding pre-COVID spending levels.
Even neighboring West Hollywood reported 4.9 million unique visitors in 2023 — 4% higher than 2019 levels — while Santa Monica remained stuck at roughly 50% of its pre-pandemic visitor volume.
Local officials said Santa Monica’s relative success wasn’t a fair way to measure the city’s recovery as it faced unique challenges.
Santa Monica Travel and Tourism said Los Angeles County faced some of the state's most prolonged COVID-19 restrictions and reopened later than markets such as San Diego and Santa Barbara — a delay that pushed meetings, events and leisure travelers to competing venues that have since retained that business.
The city has also contended with broader perceptions of Los Angeles County as a whole. International visitors frequently do not distinguish between Santa Monica and the greater Los Angeles region, meaning wildfires, crime headlines, political unrest and immigration enforcement activity have dampened travel demand even when those events occurred elsewhere in the county.
International travel faces additional obstacles outside the destination's control. Geopolitical uncertainty, shifting federal policy, visa or other related costs, and reduced international air arrivals at LAX compared with other Southern California airports have all weighed on recovery across California's international markets.
Up next: A look at the economic value of tourism and which visitors drive the local economy