Official Website



At a first glance, the official city website for San Francisco is seemingly
calm and serene. The whole website is slathered with pale blue and white.
Adorned at the top right corner however is San Francisco’s beloved icon, the
Golden Gate Bridge, right next to the header making the red of the bridge stand
out even more. These color schemes could reflect the city’s “Bay Area image,”
cool, calm, and collected with nice ocean breeze. Contrary to other cities like
Los Angeles and New York City, San Francisco isn’t as busy or hectic, but is
still just as economically and financially successful.



The front page is a simple layout with easy navigation tools that allows
viewers to access the website easily. It includes a Most Requested drop down
menu to help visitors with their tasks faster, as some of the options include
Online Payments for the City, City Jobs, and Phone Directory. It also showcases
its many social media talents including its Twitter, Facebook, News Blog,
Government TV, Mobile apps, and free wifi around the city. With a secondary tab
titled Connect, it is obvious San Francisco is proud of their technological
achievements and the modern day utilities. Offering OnlineServices as a tab is
taking into account for individuals who feel more comfortable about paying for
fees and forms online rather than mailing or delivering it manually. These
emphasis on the social media and the easy accessibleness make it a comfortable
tool for tech-savvy audiences.



There are several main tabs on top of the page: Residents, Businesses,
Government, Visitors, and OnlineServices. Under each tab includes more
categories of the same topic that will direct you to other websites that can
explain the information with more detail. Under the Businesses tab however,
there is an extra chunk of information on the bottom that instructs viewers how
to start a business. As Mayor Edwin Lee states, San Francisco is  “a city
of innovators and entrepreneurs… the entrepreneurial spirit runs deep in the
city.” Maintaining this belief, therein lies a good reason for there to be
extra information for business because the mayor encourages people to follow
their dreams, which is again a romanticized version of San Francisco. Although
people

are allowed to dream big and become successful, many of them are disadvantaged
and don't have the resources to attain this possibility.

Tourism Website

Contrary to the official webpage, the tourism website holds
more attractive and vibrant colors with pictures and diagrams methodically
organized. It’s embellished with videos, calendars with recent upcoming events,
and a handy booking tool to help make hotel reservations go smoother. There is
also a current temperature monitor to assist with visitor’s packing
necessities. There are seven tabs of navigation: To Do, Stay, Dine, Nightlife,
Shop, Events, and Arts and Culture. Having clicked all of the tabs, they individually
all have countless suggestions of events/venues to offer. If what they suggest
isn’t quite what the visitor is looking for, there is also a search tool that
helps viewers find their locations quicker.

Like many other tourism websites, this one hypes up almost
everything in the city. However, there is one segment on the list that differs
from other cities.

Gay Travel

Under the To Do, the first suggestion that pops up is Gay
Travel.

San Francisco has been widely recognized to hold the highest
percentage of LGBTQ individuals within their city’s population. 15.4% of San
Francisco are considered to be LGBTQ. Due to this statistic, it may or may not
attract many LGBTQ individuals to come and visit the city.  However, in an
effort to not discriminate or single out the LGBTQ community, this tourism
website has rather failed. On this page, an entire itinerary has been designed
under this category. This includes its own restaurants, activities, and retail
suggestions, which is problematic. Assuming a completely different menu for an
entire community is generalizing and stereotyping. Including upcoming Elton
John concerts details is stereotyping because it assumes all LGBTQ individuals
like Elton John. Including a health blog titled “Hardbody” is generalizing
because it assumes all LGBTQ individuals would be interested in attaining a
physically attractive body.

“Come see the city that practically invented gay.” The top
banner reads.

Additionally, this web page uses the LGBTQ community’s
sexual orientation as a gimmick. Although it is designed seemingly for the
community’s interest, it advertises LGBTQ as some kind of fad that people need
to check out, which is problematic because queer is real. It is a sexual
orientation people don’t choose to become or invent. It’s as if the tourism
website made an entire page of Chinese Travel, in which they strictly list
Chinese restaurants and give suggestions on where to find the areas with the
most Asian population, and listing all upcoming movies that feature Jackie
Chan.