As California tourism slides, San Diego hopes to buck the trend

By Deborah Brennan, CalMatters

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On the last day of summer, San Diego International Airport’s new Terminal 1 opened with an airy, white concourse, local eateries and new flight routes.

Passengers arriving on the first Southwest Airline flights on Monday, Sept. 22 deplaned to applause through balloon arches over the gates.

“That was fun to cheer them on,” San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Chair Gil Cabrera said the next day. “They were very confused when it was happening.”

That opening date – the fall equinox – was fixed years earlier, when airport officials set a strict construction schedule to launch the new terminal before the end of summer. Now they’re counting on the breezy, new $3.8 billion facility to attract visitors amid a statewide tourism slump. 

“We have the right airy space, with lots of light coming in, and our goal was to reflect the San Diego community, and I think we’ve done a really good job of doing that,” airport CEO Kim Becker said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week.

California has braced for a setback this year, as Trump administration policies on tariffs, immigration and gender identity have chilled some foreign travel, and international exchange rates have made it pricier to visit the U.S.

In May, Visit California, a nonprofit tourism marketing agency, projected a 1% drop in visits to the state, in the first year-over-year decline since the pandemic. San Diego tourism experts similarly predicted that visitation would flatten this year, as trade wars and market fluctuations lead people to pull back on travel spending. 

But San Diego airport officials hope to weather that downturn with a welcoming facility and new domestic and international flights. 

“The mix has sort of helped us out a little bit in the sense that where it’s dipped in one place it has sort of increased in other places,”  Cabrera told CalMatters. 

Economic headwinds

It’s a tricky time to open a new airport facility. California tourism had bounced back from the pandemic by 2024. But this year the industry faces a perfect storm of economic and political upheaval that leaves it flying into what industry analysts call “headwinds,” or obstacles to business growth.

A big part of that is the change of heart among Canadian travelers.

“We see a 40% decrease in travel from Canada to the U.S. for the first half of the year”  among leisure tourists, Amra Durakovic, a spokesperson for the Canada Flight Centre Travel Group, told CalMatters. 

Business trips to the U.S. have remained steady, she said. But many Canadians have switched their personal travel to Europe, the Caribbean and South America.

They cite steep U.S. tariffs, aggressive border checks and President Donald Trump’s annexation threats as reasons to stay away. Canadian bookings to the U.S. dropped sharply in February after the first round of tariffs, and have remained consistent since then, Durakovic said. There are also pocketbook issues at play.

“We do have a weak dollar,” she said. “I really think that’s a massive factor that dictates where Canadians travel. Everything in the US is getting more expensive, costs are rising. So when you add that together you do get a huge sticker shock in travel to the U.S.”

Canadian air travel to California slipped nearly 38% between August, 2024 and 2025, according to data from Visit California. That prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to mount a marketing campaign to woo back those visitors with promises of warmth and welcome in the Golden State.

“Sure, you-know-who is trying to stir things up back in D.C., but don’t let that ruin your beach plans,” Newsom’s office stated.

Canadians aren’t the only tourists taking a pass. Visits from Japan have dropped 20% and from Australia by nearly 15%. Forecasts for 2025 predict a 9.2% decline in international trips to California.

Los Angeles International Airport saw a 2.4 percent drop in passengers between June, 2024 and 2025, following the catastrophic fires in January and immigration raids in June. San Diego International Airport saw a smaller decline of .6% for that time period, with about 25 million passengers per year.

San Diego bucks the foreign travel trend

While foreign air travel is dwindling throughout California, San Diego International Airport shows the opposite trend. It saw a 5.5 percent boost in global passengers over the past year, with the addition of more international flights.

In May the airport launched direct flights to Amsterdam through KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and in June it introduced Copa Airlines, with a flight to Panama that opens South America to West Coast travelers.  Last year it bumped its nonstop flights to London from once to twice daily. 

Plus, the strong dollar means that more San Diego travelers are flying to destinations such as Europe and Canada, offsetting losses from incoming international flights, said Hampton Brown, vice president of revenue for the airport.

“Right now, we’re noticing that a lot of the international services that we have, actually are being carried by U.S people going abroad, rather than foreigners coming here,” he said.

The $3.8 billion terminal project was funded primarily through airport bonds, with $3.2 billion in bond debt to be repaid through airline revenue, parking and concessions income, and other fees. Another $300 million each came from the Biden-era federal infrastructure act, and Airport Authority cash.

The airport authority expects the new terminal and earlier improvements to generate $7.4 billion in sales and $127 million in local tax revenues between 2010 and 2029.

A unique quality of light

The new Terminal 1 replaces the old facility, which was built in 1967 to accommodate 2.5 million passengers annually but squeezed in 12 million people last year, Cabrera said. 

The first thing visitors driving into the airport will see is a 21-foot tall, fuschia jellyfish by artist Matthew Mazzotta. The “larger-than-life kinetic sculpture” portrays the Pacific species Chrysaora colorata and serves as a reminder of the changing climate, Mazotta stated.

Inside, the new concourse offers open space and subtle features designed to relieve the hassles of air travel. Staggered wooden ceiling tiles over the security checkpoint mimic water at a shoreline, “to create a sense of calm, because going through security can be stressful,” said Amiel Porta, director of airside and terminal operations.

Artist James Carpenter created an 800-foot span of floor-to-ceiling windows called the “Luminous Wave,” with curved, textured glass that lets sunlight enter while reducing heat and glare.

The installation captures the “unique quality of San Diego light” to create “this giant lantern that’s illuminated by the sun during the day and by architectural lighting at night,” said Anthony Hedayat, project design manager at San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.

Local eateries include The Taco Stand, Mediterranean-style Luna Grill, Better Buzz coffee and Cutwater Spirits. Skateboarder Tony Hawk and San Diego chef Claudette Zepeda collaborated to serve cross-border cuisine in a food stand with a roof made of skateboard ramps. In another nod to San Diego’s virtually year-round sunshine, there’s an outdoor eating area.

When the final phase of the new terminal is finished in 2028, there will be 30 gates, compared to 20 at the old facility..

“It’s excellent,” said Manuel Pagador, who flew to Denver through Terminal 1 last week. “It’s twice the size, very clean.”

But he found the crisp white interior to be stark, comparing it to Anchorage International Airport, with its tribal artifacts and grizzly bear mounts. Pagador suggested adding artwork representing surfboards or California poppies.

Steve Ponce flew from Oakland to San Diego through the old Terminal 1, and returned home via the new terminal last week, “which was much nicer, roomier, with better food and better seats,” he said.

For San Diego travelers who have gritted their teeth through construction traffic and a crowded terminal for the past few years, there’s a payoff already.

“It’s one of those experiences that you really do not get very often,” Cabrera said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “Everybody at the airport is happy.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.