[csomar]

Inflation for 2018 was 1.9% in the US. So that's still above inflation but also the number of visitors have increased. You should also probably take into account that the city is saturated and thus there isn't any room for growth. (which kinda of the equivalent of the city costs inflating more than the average city in the US).

> you can just feel this viscerally as the lines outside shops have shrunk, numerous shopkeeps are just dusting their shelves with no customers, and gifts look unpurchased for years.

Or maybe consumers are changing their behaviors for lack of a better word. It never made sense to me, why, as a tourist I should go shop through the city stores. The brands are the same back home, the prices are x2 what you pay in Amazon and the logistics are not that great (flight/taxis/trains/bags/etc...)

I don't think tourism is dying in SF or any city in the world (Tourism growth is so strong that even if you are a sucker-city you'll still beat records) but there is little value-added in these shops that tourists will stop and drop $$ at them.