Become again one of the most visited cities in the world… Even if it is not for now, New York will put 30 million dollars to find its visitors, by focusing its campaign first on the Americans
How to get tourists to come back? On the strength of a vigorous anti-Covid vaccination campaign and a positivity rate now below 5%, New York hopes to once again become an attractive city before the others and in June will launch a communication operation on an unprecedented scale.
Thirty million dollars to tell Americans and international tourists that “New York is waking up”: it is the unprecedented sum that the first American metropolis will put on the table, announced Wednesday the mayor Bill de Blasio and the president of the city tourist office, Fred Dixon.
Travel is still limited, the message, declined via traditional media, social networks and influencers, will target Americans first, starting with friends or relatives of New Yorkers, called to “come and visit them”. Before expanding, if pandemic control allows, to a national and then global audience, Dixon explained.
“There were 400,000 jobs linked to tourism before the pandemic, they will come back,” De Blasio assured during a press briefing. “New York is waking up, we have to tell people that our businesses are open, that they are safe […] It won’t happen overnight, we know, but it will ”.
The stakes are high for a city that was, before the pandemic, one of the most visited in the world, with a record 66.6 million visitors in 2019, attendance dropped to 22 million in 2020.
The bet has not been won: the business districts have been deserted for 13 months, the majority of employees continuing to work from home, depriving a vast ecosystem of restaurants, shops and hotels of income. And crime is on the rise, reminding some of the dirty and sometimes dangerous city New York was in the 1970s-1980s.
Despite an early recovery in sports competitions and some entertainment, key attractions are still missing, such as Broadway shows.
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