Big Apple tourism is picking up steam

Berlin._ New York City presented itself at the Berlin Tourism Exchange (ITB) as a burg now recovering its strength and attractiveness after the 9-11 syndrome, clearly reflected in a 15% plunge in the number of visitors during the year 2001.

According to some statistics disclosed at the ITB by the New York Desk of Conventions, Visitors, Great Events and Promotions, “tourism is pulling around a whole lot faster than expected.”

While the month of September closed with a 27% dip in the number of travelers as compared to 2000, late last year the gap between both periods had been narrowed to just 14% and last February the figure was no longer in double digits and landed at a meager 8.6%.

Forecasts for the year 2002 indicate that the number of tourists should not exceed an 11% less than in 2001 as hotels expect to ratchet up a 70% occupancy rate.

In 2001, 32 million people visited New York City after a record number of 37.4 million travelers posted in 2000.

National tourism only plummeted by 11% in 2001 while the number of international travelers dropped by 16%, thus averaging a 14% rate in all.

The Sept. 11 attacks were not the only factors that made a dent in the coming of visitors to NYC, said Joseph Spinneta from the New York City Hotels Association, who equally cited the economic situation in Europe and the Latin American crisis are key players in the decline.

In the case of Japan, tourists called off their trips to New York right after the attacks for “cultural reasons,” for they believed the timing wasn’t appropriate. Contacts with the Japanese government to reenergize the flow of tourists toward the Big Apple have already begun and a delegation of entrepreneurs from that Asian country is scheduled to visit Manhattan in May.

Tourism revenues have fallen deeper than the number of visitors and according to statistics handed in at the ITB, the reckoning of international tourism earnings yielded a 13% lower than the $7.2 billion reaped in the year 2000. As for th