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Well, New York… We still got it! *nervous laugh*
Contrary to most expectations, the larger turmoil in the country over the last year has not deterred visitors from wanting to take a bite out of the big apple. Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city’s official tourism organization NYC & Company announced this week that the five boroughs welcomed a record-breaking 62.8 million visitors in 2017. That’s an increase of 2.3 million visitors from 2016 and the eighth consecutive year of tourism growth.
“We’re keeping our door to the world open,” said De Blasio. “Even with all the headwinds from the White House, we attracted a record number of visitors to our city. That’s a testament to the strength of our tourism sector and the values of our city.”
In the last year, NYC & Company launched two campaigns meant to explicitly counter certain policies from the Trump Administration such as the travel ban and increasingly isolationist rhetoric: “New York City - Welcoming the World” and “True York City.”
“Despite geopolitical challenges and a travel ban that made our task of promoting tourism more challenging than ever, we are pleased to see that we overcame these hurdles to realize a consecutive eighth year of tourism growth in New York City,” said NYC & Company President and CEO Fred Dixon.
The campaigns seem to have served their purpose. Not only were domestic visitors at an all time high, but, encouragingly, the number of international visitors were record-breaking as well at 13.1 million.
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