New York City tourism recovers from September 11 : Kathika Travel Website

It’s no surprise to think that the number of tourists visiting New York City dropped dramatically after the 2001 terrorist attacks. While some curious visitors might have made a special trip to see the aftermath, most people would have been a bit nervous, and in fact tourist numbers fell to 35.3 million in 2002.

Since then, however, public confidence in visiting New York has returned, and in the figures just announced for 2007, an all time record number of 46 million visitors came to New York. Of these, 8.5 million of them were foreign tourists, with the largest numbers from Britain (1.4 million), Canada (880,000) and Germany (half a million).

The good news for the New York economy is that the result of these 46 million visitors is a boost of $28 billion. This is one situation where the weaker US dollar is an advantage, as European tourists are visiting New York in greater numbers as their pounds and euros stretch much further.

The goal is to reach 50 million visitors per year by 2015, and it seems like things are well on track to fulfill this. If you think about it, that’s really a huge number – if you’re a local New Yorker, just consider that wherever you’re headed in the city, there must be a whole heap of tourists around you, all pumping extra money into the local economy.

photo credit: mistress_f