Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of NYC, announced that around 48.7m tourists flocked to the city over the course of last year – a 7% increase on 2009 figures and the best year since tourism records were first kept.

Most of the visitors came from within the US, a total of 39m, while the remainder flew in from abroad. Tourism fell in 2009 for the first time since the 9/11 terrorism attacks, but the new figures suggest that the city’s fifth biggest industry is being revived. The good news comes despite the heavy snow fall and the Icelandic volcano causing chaos in International airspace. The global recession was also expected to impose a downturn in travel numbers as people focused on saving.

Amongst all visitors, the revenue generated over the course of 2010 thanks to the upsurge totaled some $31 billion, split between restaurants, shops, hotels and leading attractions. The Brooklyn region in particular enjoyed much of the tourism revival with many visitors expressing a renewed interest in its music and culture scene. Broadway theatre attendance saw an increase of nearly 4% and it is reported that over 6,000 additional jobs were created within the hospitality sector, with 26m hotel room night sales during the year.

Michael Bloomberg went on to state that the ultimate goal was to achieve 50 million visitors for 2012, a figure which does not seem unrealistic given the latest numbers. The statistics include anyone who spends one or more nights in New York City and has travelled from a distance of at least fifty miles in order to get there.

Reported by Zeke Lyons.

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