New York celebrates the return of tourists

On November 8, the “travel ban”, which barred the majority of international tourists from entering the United States, ended. Cultural institutions, such as the MET or the famous jazz club Blue Note, are delighted, after twenty months of separation … Finally!

It’s Christmas before its time for David Campany. Programming director of the International Center of Photography (ICP), a famous photography center located in New York, he looks forward to the opening of the US borders to vaccinated international travelers on Monday, November 8. The curious will be able in particular to discover the new space of this high place of the image inaugurated a few weeks before the health crisis to be immediately closed. “This will be a significant moment for us as most of our visitors come from abroad. Of course, we are a New York institution, but our audience and our artists are not from the United States ”, he said.

Declared by Donald Trump and then renewed by Joe Biden, the “travel ban” since March 2020 has prohibited tourists from Europe, China, Brazil, India and South Africa from entering the United States. In New York, where the cultural sector accounts for 293,000 jobs, the consequences have been dramatic for the museums, galleries, theaters and other blues and jazz clubs that rely on this clientele. In 2018, the city was visited by 13.6 million international travelers – a record. Leading them are the British (1.2 million), Chinese (1.08 million) and Canadians (1 million), according to the 2019 report by the travel agency NYC & Company. The French come in fifth position, with 814,000 visitors, behind the Brazilians.

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