“It’s normal as before Covid. Something less crowded at much higher prices, but as good as ever.” Andrea Cinti, a Florentine Italian, takes an X-ray of New York City in the year 2022 while breathing at her feet and in her shadow in the middle of a stifling July day. Boat, giant herd of statues hudson yard There, the ascent was vetoed after many suicides, but tourists continue to flock to the light like moths with their cameras and Instagram accounts.
Cinti and her husband, who have been frequent visitors to New York City since they celebrated their honeymoon here a few decades ago, are back this summer after years of pause made by the pandemic. They are now part of the international travelers who can enter the United States. without the need for covid testing the day before their arrival, only by showing that they have received the document full vaccination schedule. And part of the eight million foreign tourists New York is expecting this year, well above the 2.4 million that could come in 2020, but still far from the 13.5 million in 2019.
These are figures in line with total tourism, including national: New York is expected to receive 56.6 million tourists this year; this is far from the record 66.6 million in 2019, but a 70% increase over last year.
“A magical place”
Cinti moves around the city. metreIt continues to be considered “safe” despite the statistical increase in crime and incidents making the headlines. They do not express any concerns about it. increase in severity and they don’t even notice the increase in the homeless population. And what they find is a city with visible changes, such as an infinity of restaurant terraces that change the configuration and use of public space, but remain essentially unchanged: “New York is a magical place.”
That’s exactly the idea the mayor is trying to establish, Eric Adamsand officials responsible for trying to ensure that the metropolis definitively regains its pulse as a jewel among US tourist destinations. They calculate that it won’t happen until 2024. pre-pandemic levels But they’re hitting the accelerator to get it done, and after launching a campaign to promote tourism, in which they invested $30 million last year, this year the mayor gave those efforts another $10 million. Their rush to do so is understandable: tourism is an important economical engine for the city and produced before covid-19 $72 billion a year and supported 400,000 jobs.
extraordinary revival
“New York is experiencing an extraordinary ‘revival,'” he said recently at IWP, the largest travel fair in the US. Fred Dixon Chairman and CEO of NYC & Company, the city’s official tourism and marketing organization. “We are doing well on all fronts and have regained our position among the leading US hotel markets by returning to number one this spring.”
Mayor Adams also said: hotel reservations, which makes them already 95% of the pre-covid era, almost completely filling the 121,000 available rooms. He also highlighted Broadway ticket sales, which have been at their peak since the theaters reopened. according to incoming data Broadway leaguealready in April, the population of these demonstrations had reached 90% of pre-pandemic levels.
More numbers and facts speak of tourism’s phenomenal comeback. Again, the queues are big to catch the ferries of private companies, which are full to the brim from Battery Park to the Statue of Liberty. As New Yorkers queue up to catch the boats that will take them out to sea beaches Like those in Rockaways, part of the municipal ferry network that significantly strengthened the previous first mayor, bill de blasio, also filled urban oasesWhat are the parks that begin with Central Park and also point to the piers or neighborhoods in Bryant Park, the elevated Highline, the newly added Little Island, the Hudson, and the Brooklyn waterfront?
Museums are full again for the first summer no capacity limitation. In some cases, such as the metropolitan, the ticket price for non-local visitors was increased from $25 to $30, a tangible reflection and symbol of inflation’s notorious influence.
“Resilient, sustainable and fair” tourism
Authorities are making efforts to ensure that the return of tourism helps the entire city and promotes its local businesses and multicultural realities. They participated, for example, on NYCGo.com, in line with the national development of a strategy by the Department of Commerce seeking “more resilient, sustainable and equitable” tourism. guides To transform the Latin and Asian “experience” experiences into the experience of the past. black community. A guide for Muslim visitors has also been added.
In any case, there is no residential district that measures and symbolizes the pulse of tourism more than Times Square, which both ‘The Wall Street Journal’ and ‘The New York Times have recently analyzed as the core for Manhattan’s recovery. Midtown in particular has been hit hard by the slow return of offices and workers. below 40% of pre-pandemic level. The spectral view of 2020 remains a bad memory, and the overcrowding and heavy foot traffic of up to 300,000 people a day is being felt again, according to calculations by the Times Square Alliance. The majority of New Yorkers continue to avoid this place, but its revival is vital to the city. Neighborhood businesses employed approximately 66,000 people before the pandemic, and its economic output, equivalent to all of Nashville in 2016, represented 15% of the entire New York City economy.
Source: Informacion
