Economic Impact on Sonoma County

It has been reported here and other places about the impact on wineries from the pandemic. With no visitors there's almost no tasting room sales. With no restaurant dining there's no wines sales there either. Luckily, online wine orders are way up.

The ripple effect has hit the Sonoma economy because of it's dependence on visitors. We're not as dependent on tourism as, say, Hawaii, but it's still a large piece of the local economy. In 2019 guests spent an estimated two and a quarter billion dollars here. The local governments brought in over two hundred million dollars in taxes and fees. One in ten jobs was directly related to tourism and, of course, a lot more indirectly. The state of California has well over one millions jobs directly related to tourism and hospitality. These numbers are from Information from Visit California / Dean Runyan and Associates "California Travel Impacts by County" for 2019.

A bit over half of Sonoma County's visitors come from within the state and for the rest of this year, maybe longer, this is where most of the guests will be from along with a few driving in from nearby states. 

As of late May the hospitality and retail sectors of the economy are opening slowly to gauge the impact on the virus spreading. Tasting rooms and restaurants are expected to be fully open this summer, but with the restrictions in place their capacity will be much less, but so will visitation. This doesn't bode well for small businesses or employment numbers. Current unemployment is over 15% so if we get back up and running this summer that number may drop some, but no where back to near where we were a few months ago.