Tourism in New York City

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The Unisphere in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
The Unisphere in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

Tourism in New York City includes nearly 44 million foreign and American tourists each year.[1] Major destinations include the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Broadway theatre productions, museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other tourist attractions including Central Park, Washington Square Park, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, the Bronx Zoo, New York Botanical Garden, luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues, and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, the Tribeca Film Festival, and free performances in Central Park at Summerstage. The Statue of Liberty is a major tourist attraction and one of the most recognizable icons of the United States.[2] Many of the city's ethnic enclaves, such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Brighton Beach are major shopping destinations for first and second generation Americans up and down the East Coast.

New York City has over 28,000 acres (113 km²) of parkland and 14 linear miles (22 km) of public beaches.[3][4] Manhattan's Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is the most visited city park in the United States.[5] Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also designed by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90 acre (36 hectare) meadow.[6] Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, the city's third largest, was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and 1964 World's Fair.

New York's food culture, influenced by the city's immigrants and large number of dining patrons, is diverse. Jewish and Italian immigrants made the city famous for bagels, cheesecake and New York-style pizza. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors licensed by the city, many immigrant-owned, have made Middle Eastern foods such as falafels and kebabs standbys of contemporary New York street food.[7] The city is also home to many of the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the United States.[8]

The Plaza Hotel.
The Plaza Hotel.

Tourism in New York City is a large industry. According to NYC & Company, the top producing countries for international visitors to New York City in 2005 were the United Kingdom (1,169,000), Canada (815,000), Germany (401,000), Japan (299,000), Italy (292,000), France (268,000), Ireland (253,000), Australia (235,000), Spain (205,000), and the Netherlands (147,000).[9]

Spearheading the city's tourism efforts is NYC & Company, the city's official convention and visitor bureau currently headed by George Fertitta. It has offices in 14 countries, including Argentina, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Japan, Korea and China.[10] NYC & Company is the official source of tourism statistics for the city. The research department develops and distributes comprehensive information on NYC domestic and international visitor statistics and monitors the travel industry's impact on New York City's economy. The department also produces 14 official New York City tourism marketing publications that feature information on member hotels, museums, attractions, theaters, stores, restaurants, meeting venues, and service providers.

Many visitors investigate their genealogy at historic immigration sites such as Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Other tourist destinations include the Empire State Building, for 40 years the world's tallest building after its construction in 1931, Radio City Music Hall, home of The Rockettes, a variety of Broadway shows, the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, housed on a World War II aircraft carrier, shopping districts like Fifth Avenue, and city landmarks such as Central Park, which is one of the finest examples of landscape architecture in the world. New York City has encouraged tourist shopping not applying its 8.375% sales tax to clothing and footwear items under $110.

The World Trade Center was an important tourist destination before the September 11, 2001 attacks, which devastated the city and its tourist industry. The city was nearly devoid of tourists for months,[dubious – discuss][citation needed] and it took two years for the numbers to fully rebound with fewer international, but more domestic visitors. Now the World Trade Center site has itself become an important place for visitors to see.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ NYC Statistics. NYC & Company. Retrieved on 2006-08-03.
  2. ^ Statue of Liberty. New York Magazine. Retrieved on 2006-06-20.
  3. ^ Mayor Giuliani Announces Amount of Parkland in New York City has Passed 28,000 Acre Mark. New York City Mayor's Office (February 3, 1999). Retrieved on 2007-06-06.
  4. ^ Beaches. New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved on 2007-06-06.
  5. ^ City Park Facts. The Trust for Public Land, Center for City Park Excellence (June 2006). Retrieved on 2006-07-19.
  6. ^ General Information. Prospect Park Alliance. Retrieved on 2007-06-06.
  7. ^ Bleyer, Jennifer. "Kebabs on the Night Shift", The New York Times, May 14, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-07-19. 
  8. ^ Collins, Glenn. "Michelin Takes on the City, Giving Some a Bad Taste", The New York Times, November 3, 2005. Retrieved on 2006-07-19. 
  9. ^ NYC & Company. "NYC Statistics". Retrieved on 2006-08-03. 
  10. ^ NYC & Company. NYC & Company Offices Worldwide. Retrieved on 2007-03-25.
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