For the first time in decades, multiple hotel projects are popping up throughout the East Bay — another sign of the region’s emergence as a prime destination for business and leisure travelers.

Hotel developers have long cast a cautious eye at the East Bay because of the cyclical nature of the travel market and the risks involved with costly, lengthy hotel construction. But that has changed thanks to a spillover from the San Francisco market, combined with an East Bay business boom and recent efforts to market the region as a destination in its own right.

“As San Francisco gets more full and more expensive, individual travelers and corporate travelers will find their way to Oakland and Emeryville and Berkeley,” said Rick Swig, a hospitality consultant and Bay Area hotel industry veteran. “Those that are cost-minded will recognize they can get a very good hotel in those cities, get on BART and get to San Francisco.”

In Oakland, that includes a recently approved project that will bring a seven-floor boutique hotel, in addition to housing, retail and parking, on a currently empty lot at 19th Street and Telegraph Avenue owned by the city.

The city has also signed an agreement for a potential hotel as part of a larger retail and housing project at 11th and Clay streets, and the Port of Oakland inked a deal late last year with hotel developer Paresh Patel to explore the possibility of a “mid-sized boutique independent hotel” at 1441-1551 Embarcadero.

And there are preliminary plans for a 165-room hotel at 1431 Jefferson St., which is currently a parking lot.

“There certainly is a lot of interest in Oakland these days from hotels and developers who work with them, and we have had a lot of initial discussions with these folks,” said Keira Williams, a retail specialist in Oakland’s department of economic and workforce development, in an email.

But Oakland isn’t the only East Bay city with an eye on hotels. Berkeley, Emeryville and Walnut Creek all have hotel projects under review.

A long-planned Berkeley hotel project that would bring 330 hotel rooms and 9,000 square feet of meeting space at 2129 Shattuck Ave. will likely break ground in July, according to Edward McFarlan of JRDV Architects, the firm behind that hotel. And according to Visit Berkeley CEO Barbara Hillman, an 85-room, all-suite, limited-service hotel in the downtown corridor is under review in the city, while in Emeryville, a 175-room Hyatt Place Hotel is under construction next to the Bay Street Emeryville mall and slated to open later this year.

Walnut Creek’s hotel scene could also soon change. Currently, a proposal for a new Marriott Residence Inn at 2050 and 2047 N. Main Street is under review in the city.

Just near the BART station, that 160-room hotel would target business travelers, said interim economic development manager Ethan Bindernagel.

The city has previously entertained discussion about putting a boutique hotel in the downtown corridor, and Bindernagel said that though no plans are under review for such a project, the city “would welcome the opportunity” to review them.

Pleasanton, too, is seeing interest from hotel builders. Marriott is interested in building two hotels on a portion of a 40-acre site along Johnson Drive near Interstate 680, according to Dan Rosenbaum, senior vice president of real estate investment company Nearon Enterprises.

The uptick in development is largely driven by an increase in room occupancy and daily room rates. Oakland, for example, saw hotel room occupancy rise to an average of 76.4 percent in 2015, a steep jump from the average occupancy of 58.1 percent in 2010, according to STR, a hotel data and analytics specialist. Occupancy at hotels across Alameda County jumped from an average of 62.9 percent in 2010 to 80 percent in 2015, and Contra Costa County hotels saw a similar increase, jumping from an average occupancy of 61.5 percent in 2010 to 79.7 percent in 2015, the STR data showed.

The East Bay has emerged as a destination for both business and leisure travel, thanks to the efforts of its various visitors bureaus, and as more offices plant roots in the area, thanks to the Bay Area’s relatively successful business climate.

“What’s happened is Oakland has developed into its own, and it’s driving its own demand,” said Mark Everton, general manager of the Waterfront Hotel in Oakland’s Jack London Square. “There is a lot of travel from corporate business.”

Thanks to companies migrating from San Francisco’s expensive office market, and local Oakland businesses expanding, the business community in Oakland is attracting more attention — and business travelers — than ever. That’s expected to increase when tech giant Uber next year brings more than 2,000 employees to Uptown Station, the seven-story building at 1955 Broadway that the company purchased last year.

It’s not just corporate travel that is picking up. With new restaurants and retail cropping up all over the East Bay, the region is making its mark as a leisure destination as well. Berkeley’s downtown corridor has seen an influx of new dining options, as well as destination spots like the new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the under-construction music and performing arts venue, the UC Theatre.

Oakland’s hot restaurant scene, particularly in the Uptown District around the Fox and Paramount theaters, is also a big cultural draw, and something that its marketing bureau, Visit Oakland, has worked hard to promote.

Last year, the city passed a hotel fee called the Oakland Tourism Business Improvement District, which calls for guests at hotels with 50 or more rooms to pay an extra $1.50 per occupied room night and is expected to bring in an extra $1.6 million per year for Visit Oakland.

Since it started last August, it has allowed Visit Oakland to launch new digital advertising campaigns, create new tourism materials like the Oakland Urban Wine Trail and the Oakland Dining Guide, and provide more convention services to meeting planners, said Natalie Alvanez, vice president of business development for Visit Oakland.

Building hotels is easier said than done, however. The high costs of constructing hotels, coupled with the fact that it’s a highly cyclical industry, means that potential hoteliers worry about getting a hotel project — which can take multiple years to build — penciled in before the economic cycle comes down from its peak and room rates and occupancy drop. No one knows how long the cycle will last.

Still, the hot tourism market and the lack of available hotel inventory in the East Bay continues to drive interest, Swig said.

“The cycle is in full swing,” he said.

Contact Annie Sciacca at 925-943-8073. Follow her at Twitter.com/AnnieSciacca.