Which is more accurate, if you love Seattle you’d love Anchorage or you’d love San Francisco? (Vancouver: to live in, price)

[Natnasci]

Originally Posted by Igor Blevin

Seattle - 41 million tourists in 2019. That is DOUBLE the entire nation of Canada at 22 million.


Seattle area sees record number of tourists for 10th year in a row

https://www.seattlepi.com/news/artic...r-15083215.php



Canada experiences third consecutive record-breaking year for tourism in 2019

https://www.destinationcanada.com/en...r-tourism-2019


What am I missing?

It isn't so much as to what you are missing, but what the stats are missing.

How is the data collected?

How is it different from how Vancouver or Canada collects it?

That number of 22 millions tourist to Canada becomes very fuzzy when adding up the number of tourists visiting our cites, let alone the rest of the country. Vancouver gets 8 million or so a year, Toronto 27.5 million a year.
So it's obvious there is some very different data collecting on how they are counting tourists and that Toronto numbers are counting other Canadians visiting...but how?

Even if you just look at Vancouver and Seattle. If they are going by hotel bookings, Seattle city limits are twice that of Vancouver. Meaning a tourist may be counted as a tourist to Seattle, when in Vancouver, that tourist is staying in Richmond, or Burnaby etc and would not be counted.

This is conjecture on my part, as I have no idea how they are data collecting these visits.

Anyway I voted for SF. I haven't been to Anchorage, but I can see the SF and Seattle comparison.

[Gardyloo]

I've lived for years in all three cities, and I don't think there are many comparisons worth talking about. All three are in scenic locations; SF and Seattle have fascinating histories, and Anchorage's chief benefit is that it's a half hour from Alaska.

BTW, Anchorage isn't all that hilly, except the Hillside district on the city's east side (base of the Chugach mountains.) Otherwise, it's a coastal plain.

[jabogitlu]

I lived in Alaska for a few years, and now have lived in Seattle for a few years. Only visited the Bay Area though.

Most folks live in Seattle because they love access to nature. Kayaks, backpacking, marine life watching, sailing, day hikes, mountain climbing/ice climb/snowshoeing.

You do all of that in Anchorage, in spades.

Plus, Seattle and Anchorage in general are much more similar politically than San Francisco. Yes, Seattle has an extremely left-wing component that is more akin to SF, but the metro area is VERY Anchorage feeling to me. Especially places like Puyallup/South Hill (very MatSu) and Marysville area. Even the Kitsap area feels a lot like the Kenai Peninsula.

[Seacove]

Originally Posted by jabogitlu

I lived in Alaska for a few years, and now have lived in Seattle for a few years. Only visited the Bay Area though.

Most folks live in Seattle because they love access to nature. Kayaks, backpacking, marine life watching, sailing, day hikes, mountain climbing/ice climb/snowshoeing.

You do all of that in Anchorage, in spades.

Plus, Seattle and Anchorage in general are much more similar politically than San Francisco. Yes, Seattle has an extremely left-wing component that is more akin to SF, but the metro area is VERY Anchorage feeling to me. Especially places like Puyallup/South Hill (very MatSu) and Marysville area. Even the Kitsap area feels a lot like the Kenai Peninsula.

Could not disagree more. Seattle is much more like the Bay Area. I have been to both. In weather, in politics, in attitude, much more like the Bay Area. Anchorage is conservative. We get a ton of people moving from San Francisco. Very few of those people would even consider Anchorage. Puyallup and Marysville are both in different COUNTIES than Seattle which is King County. King County is not only blue, it is the largest revenue generator by far in the state, contributing over $3B a year to 33 other counties in the state including Pierce County, where Puyallup resides. Pierce is a huge complainer about King County politics but they happily take their money. Puyallup and Marysville are not at all similar to Seattle.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

San Francisco is much more similar to Seattle than Anchorage is.


Myself, I'd prefer Anchorage but then I don't love Seattle and I most certainly have no interest at all in living in San Francisco. I suspect that the people who love Seattle are well accustomed to putting up with the worst negatives, so those very same negatives won't bother them in San Francisco, either.

[Flightoficarus87]

Of these two, definitely SF. The downtown core of SF itself reminds me a lot of Seattle, but with cable cars and Victorian architecture scattered in. It also feels more lively/worldly, and is more urbanized. The hillier areas of the East Bay in particular remind me a lot of the Puget Sound metro as well, scenery-wise.

Maybe it's not an American city, but I think Vancouver BC is a better metro area to compare with Seattle and SF that's further north along the west coast than Seattle. IMO, the overall vibe is closer to Seattle, but has a more lively/worldly city feel to it like SF.

[beenhereandthere]

That’s probably true about Vancouver but I was only including American cities in this

[jabogitlu]

Practically speaking, Anchorage's Spenard/Spenardagain/Turnagain are probably much more politically aligned with Capitol Hill (Seattle) and SF neighborhoods. So, if the question is "which city has more liberal neighborhoods?" then Seattle and the Bay are likely more similar, with Anchorage having a few smaller districts that are similarly aligned.

However if we're comparing metro to metro, Seattle-Anchorage feels much more similar to me.

[Gardyloo]

Originally Posted by jabogitlu

Most folks live in Seattle because they love access to nature. Kayaks, backpacking, marine life watching, sailing, day hikes, mountain climbing/ice climb/snowshoeing.

You do all of that in Anchorage, in spades.

I think most people live in Seattle, as well as Anchorage, because their work or family connections brought them (or bred them) there. It's worth remembering that Anchorage was, and remains, a major military town, thanks to JBER, much like Tacoma. If you wanted to compare Anchorage and Tacoma, I think there might be more similarities.

[fusion2]

Originally Posted by Igor Blevin

What am I missing?

Honestly - I think you're missing something because in 2019 Toronto had 28 million tourists. That is more than the 22 million in all of Canada so something funky skunky is going on. Which.. I think I got below.

So the 22 million for Canada in 2019 was foreign tourism. The 41 million for Seattle you cite is a mix of all tourism including domestic.

https://www.destinationcanada.com/en...r-tourism-2019

"Today, Destination Canada - Canada’s national marketing organization, recognized a third consecutive record-breaking year with 22.1 million travellers to Canada in 2019 according to Statistics Canada." Key is travellers to Canada meaning foreign visitation. That number does not include all tourism so is misleading if you are using it to compare to something with both foreign and domestic.

https://www.seattlepi.com/news/artic...r-15083215.php

"Seattle and King County welcomed 41.9 million visitors in 2019, estimates for the year showed. That's a 2.3% increase over the previous year. The number of overnight visitors in 2019 rose to 21.9 million, a 3% increase." This 42 million is all tourism both foreign and domestic.

So yes, you would be right in saying Seattle does get more tourists than Vancouver and also Toronto, but not all tourism in Canada. The fact that Seattle on a city level gets more than Canadian cities isn't surprising, given the population of the U.S vs Canada. If domestic tourism was removed it would change the dynamic of these comparisons considerably. Where your comparison went off the rails though, was not accounting for the differences in Foreign and domestic visitation.

Originally Posted by Natnasci

That number of 22 millions tourist to Canada becomes very fuzzy when adding up the number of tourists visiting our cites, let alone the rest of the country. Vancouver gets 8 million or so a year, Toronto 27.5 million a year.
.

See above Nat - the 22 mil in 2019 was foreign visitors not all tourism in Canada. The 28 million for T.O back in 2019 was a mix of foreign and domestic tourism. The 41 Million for Seattle is a similar mix.

The big U.S Cities are always going to have a numbers advantage over CAD cities when you account for total tourism foreign and domestic, because as I mentioned - the U.S is simply a much larger country than Canada and thus more domestic visitors going from place to place - just a much bigger pool of humanity overall.