Oracle, a major Silicon Valley tech company, will move its annual OpenWorld conference to Las Vegas next year due to San Francisco’s expensive hotel rates and the city’s “poor street conditions,” according to reports.
The loss of OpenWorld, which has been held in San Francisco for about 20 years, is raising new concerns about whether the city’s struggles with homelessness, open drug use and street violence may be scaring off tourism and other business, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
“For the industry, for the city, to have a major conference leave us impacts all of us,” Kevin Carroll, chief executive of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, which represents hotel owners, told the newspaper.
“It’s a huge deal,” added Rick Swig, a hotel consultant at RSBA & Associates.
Oracle decided to pull out even though San Francisco recently invested $551 million in a renovation and expansion of the downtown Moscone Center, the convention facility where OpenWorld had been held for years, the Chronicle reported. – READ MORE