There's a better than one in ten chance that the next visitor who walks through your door will be from the Los Angeles area and almost a four-in-ten chance that they'll be from somewhere in California.

According to results from the first six months of a new San Francisco CVB study, more than 16 percent of domestic visitors to San Francisco are from the Los Angeles metropolitan area, The City's largest single feeder market.

The findings were gath-ered between January and June 1998. The research is continuing throughout the calendar year and, when finished, will paint a more complete picture of the San Francisco visitor.

So far, however, Los Angeles tops the list of 10 key markets that produce more than 50 percent of all domestic visitors to San Francisco (see accompany-ing chart). New York and the Sacramento - Stockton - Modesto area came in at second and third place, each generating about 5 percent of the domestic visitor market.

Fresno - Visalia and San Diego came in at fourth and fifth respectively, placing four of the top five feeder markets within California.

The four key markets within the state generate almost 30 percent of all visitors to San Francisco. When all other markets within the state are added to the mix, California accounts for 36.8 percent of all domestic visitors.

"While the majority of visitors to San Francisco come from out of state, these results demonstrate that our industry gets a lot of support from within California," said David Bratton, the Bureau's research manager. "This kind of information can be very useful to members when putting together their mar-keting plans."

The percentage of visitors from California who stay in hotels during their stay is a little less than 25 percent. Once again, the Los Angeles area tops the list with more than 13 percent staying in hotels, followed by Washington, DC (4.4 percent), New York (3.9 percent), Chicago (3.8 percent) and San Diego (3.7 percent).

The findings are part of ongoing surveys conducted by the Bureau of both hotel guests and local residents who host overnight "visiting friends or relatives" (VFRs) in their homes.

The surveys uncovered demographic information as well as travel and spending patterns, which will be covered in future issues of Cablegram.