With the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference underway in San Francisco, Union Square is alive.

“It’s a little bit more than I thought,” said Mark Davis. “It’s beautiful, I love to see it.”

Davis and his band, Danger von Davis, are one of several that played in Union Square as San Francisco welcomed its first major conference of the year. Davis said these events are one of the key pieces of San Francisco’s economic vitality.

“The conferences bring more visibility and business,” he said. “Things are picking up a little bit. We’re obviously here at this huge conference. Our shows in the Castro — which we do first and third Tuesdays at Blush Wine Bar — are getting more and more attendance and people have been enthusiastic.”

This particular conference brings thousands of people to the city, from investors to innovators to executives and more. For many of the attendees, the city is making a good impression, whether it be a first or new one.

“This is a beautiful city,” said Bruce Ahern, an executive from South Carolina in town for the conference. “There’s a lot of charm to it,  lot more than most quote, convention cities.”

That’s music to Anna Marie Presutti’s ears. She’s the President & CEO of the San Francisco Travel Association (SF Travel).

“I mean, seeing really is believing,” she said. “We didn’t have a lot of misses last year. That’s what kind of made it so beautiful.”

When it comes to this year’s convention outlook, she says the city is continuing the progress made last year.

“Right now, 2026 looks really positive. Certainly, 2025 was a big lift over 2024,” she said.

The number of Moscone Conventions has grown year over year, per SF Travel figures.

• 2024: 25 conventions
• 2025: 34 conventions
• 2026: 38 conventions

“All of the places that we were losing business to, all of a sudden are now, ‘Oh, we want back in. We want back in to San Francisco,” Presutti said. “We’re also really looking very closely at, some of these convention centers around the country are undergoing renovations or they’re completely shifting how they’re doing business. So, we’ve been able to pull from there.”

Looking at 2026 as a whole, SF Travel projects just over 24 million visitors this year, and it estimates they’ll spend $9.83 billion.

“I think what happens is when people come, particularly for a conference, they’re pleasantly surprised,” Presutti said. “Then, they go home and they tell two people, and those two people tell two people, and that’s what we’ve seen happen over the course of the last 18 months.”

Presutti said last year, a partnership with United Airlines allowed SF Travel to fly out San Francisco skeptics who were reluctant to book business in the city.

“It was sort of a see-it-for-yourself campaign. Rather than us telling you about it, why don’t you come and see it for yourself?” she said. “We closed over 70% of those.”

One big question mark for 2026?

“The only thing that is still sort of, up in the air? The international piece,” Presutti said. “That is very geopolitical right now, so we’re not really sure how that is going to behave this year.”

There has never been a grand, overarching plan guiding Lily Wu’s life. Indeed, from her childhood in a small village in northeast China to her standing as one of Seattle’s rising-star restaurant owners, everything has unfolded step by step, but whenever a chance came along, she never hesitated to take it.

“I come from a very poor family, so I still feel that I have nothing to lose,” Wu says. “That encourages me, and I feel I’m brave enough. It’s okay to lose everything, to restart.”

That persistence is what brought her to Flushing, New York, in 2006, on a student visa. It then took her west to Seattle, where she worked in housekeeping for hotels while receiving government assistance. Eventually, Wu’s big ideas about introducing new flavors to the local dining scene saw her return to her home country, where she learned how to make traditional biang biang noodles.

Today, those self-taught techniques draw rave reviews at Xi’an Noodles, which has three locations in the University District, Westlake, and Bellevue. Last September, Wu opened her fifth restaurant—a second Happy Crab outpost, in Ballard, with beautiful waterfront views of Shilshole Bay. There, guests can savor a Cajun seafood boil with Chinese flair, and at a relatively affordable price too (the jambalaya special is $10).

Achieving your dreams is never without hardship, and as an immigrant woman, Wu has faced challenges, working many times harder just to be seen. Years spent dealing with depression and doubts that made her want to put her restaurants up for sale. Finding reliable staff during a labor shortage, in an industry where drug and alcohol abuse has a firm grip. Studying finance, labor law, restaurant management, and food safety to make sure her businesses were compliant and built on fairness.

It took time for Wu to surround herself with good people, but once she found a solid support system—and focused on personal growth—she achieved a new level of success and is now looking to pay it forward. In the future, she plans to open her Happy Crab kitchen through a program for professionals just starting their careers.

“My goal with Chef Night is to create a platform for young people or anyone who dreams of starting their own business—a stage where they can showcase their talent, gain experience, and build confidence,” she explains. “I’d love to welcome anyone who’s passionate about food and entrepreneurship to join, learn, and take their first steps towards their own dreams.”

Already, Wu has had a positive impact on more people than she ever thought possible: 70+ employees make up her extended family, many of whom have been with her for close to a decade.

“Their loyalty means everything to me, and I’m deeply grateful for those who have walked this long road by my side,” she says. “After the pandemic, many restaurants didn’t survive. But we did. We rebuilt, we grew, and we stood back up. To me, influence isn’t about how big your company is; it’s about how many lives you uplift and how much integrity you carry along the way.”