By: Ilana Siyance
Eighteen months after the COVID-19 pandemic turned the city that never sleeps into a ghost town, tourism is starting to come back. The hospitality industry, which received a devastating blow from the closures and travel bans, needs to rebound soon in order to recover.
As reported by Crain’s NY, international tourism has finally returned to the Big Apple. The city’s arts, culture and hotels are starting to bud after the long hibernation. It’s already been a month since the U.S. opened its borders back up to tourism for travelers vaccinated for Covid-19. “Foot traffic is noticeably up on Fifth Avenue, almost back to pre-pandemic levels,” said Jerome Barth, president of the Fifth Avenue Association, which has set up an extravagant spectacle of lights from the department stores all the way to the famed Rockefeller tree.
Consumer spending is up for the avenue’s retailers, Barth said, sometimes even recompensing for the missing revenue in 2020. While it’s difficult to pinpoint if sales are from foreign or U.S. dollars, observers say they have been hearing accents among shoppers and foreign languages in hotel lobbies. One survey, in the tourist magazine City Guide NY, found that 45 percent of NYC visitors who responded were international, while 55 percent were from within the U.S. “It could have been 25% and I wouldn’t have been surprised,” said Ethan Wolff, the director of content management for the publication. He was impressed with the strong numbers, noting that foreign travelers tend to stay longer and spend more money.
International tourists can go to several Broadway shows in one visit, Charlotte St. Martin of the Broadway League told Crain’s. Since Nov. 8, when international tourism was reopened, the capacity at Broadway shows has averaged around 83 percent, as per the Broadway League. In November, total attendance ranged from 210,000 to 238,000, compared to 270,000 to 300,000 in 2019 before the pandemic. Foot traffic in Times Square reached 260,000 the weekend after Thanksgiving, double the 2020 traffic but still shy from the 337,000 recorded in 2019, as per the Times Square Alliance.
Hotel occupancy in the city jumped for the week of Nov. 15, from 68% to 74% as per STR. After Thanksgiving, however, that number declined to 71 percent, for the week ending Dec. 4.
As per Crain’s, throughout the country, there is high travel volume expected for December, and NYC is slated to return as a top destination. Still, the new Omicron threat and the approach of winter months may put a damper on a real recovery, delaying it till the spring.
