New York City Tourism: Big Apple Attracts Record Number Of Visitors

NYC Brings Hosts 56 Million Visitors

The Big Apple has great appeal to tourists.

In numbers released for 2014, it received a record number of visitors, a whopping 56.4 million, in fact. They accounted for another record, 32.4 million hotel room nights.

Needless to say, this was a point of pride for the city and its officials.

“From Soho to Soundview to Sunnyside, New York City offers visitors hundreds of unique neighborhoods and communities to explore—and last year a record 56.4 million visitors chose to experience all that New York City has to offer,” said  Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“Our five boroughs are brimming with new enclaves of diverse food, performances and art shows around every corner. Our excellent quality of life, low levels of crime, and constant dynamism continue to attract record tourism each year, and 2014 was no exception.”

All those visitors had a huge economic impact on the city. The city puts the economic impact at $81.3 billion, another record. The tourism industry generated $3.7 billion in local tax revenues.

This is the second record-breaking year in a row; in 2013, 54.3 million visitors came to New York City—a record high at the time. This year’s total of of 56.4 million visitors represents a 23 percent increase since 2009, when the City was attracting nearly 46 million visitors. Year over year, the City saw a nearly 4 percent increase in tourism.

In 2014, the city also reached 102,000 hotel rooms in its active inventory. It is on track to each more than 115,000 rooms by 2017.