A report by the city’s NYC & Company agency predicts that tourism in the Big Apple will recover to pre-COVID-19 levels in 2024 at the earliest.
Even if vaccine use begins in the coming weeks, revenues from this industry will not be able to reach coronavirus levels.
The report says that by the end of this year, tourism will decline by 66%: in 2019 there were 66.6 million visitors, in 2020 there will be no more than 22.9 million.
Last year, tourists who came to New York spent $ 47.4 billion. Now the money going to the city treasury is immeasurably less.
Tourism is considered the most important economic sector for the city. Hotel employees were the first to lose their jobs as soon as the COVID-19 epidemic broke out.
Later, hotel rooms in some places were used for resettlement of the homeless and temporary stay of “key” workers. However, this did not happen everywhere. Some hotels, unable to withstand financial difficulties, closed forever. As for entertainment, it is difficult to make any assumptions yet. For example, well-known theaters on Broadway are closed indefinitely.
The authors of the NYC & Company report emphasize that their forecasts are approximate and depend on many factors. If restrictions on business travel, which provide a significant portion of income, are lifted, a return to the previous level may occur not in four years, but in three years. It is also important when travel bans in other countries will be lifted, although experts remind that “international travel after the September 11 tragedy resumed only four years later.”
Newspaper headline:
Tourism in deep crisis