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New York City expects to welcome 56.7 million tourists in 2022, which will be 85% of the number of arrivals in 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic when it set an all-time record.
The president of NYC&Company, the agency in charge of tourism promotion, Fred Dixon, explained Tuesday that during the crucial winter season alone – Thanksgiving and Christmas – 6.5 million visitors are expected, which will contribute to bringing that figure above 50 million.
Despite the already col temperatures, the fourth quarter is traditionally the busiest for tourism, typically accounting for 30% of total traveler arrivals in the Big Apple.
Dixon advanced his forecasts at an event in which he presented the traditional Christmas offerings of New York: ice skating rinks, Christmas lighting in certain neighborhoods, the giant fir tree at Rockefeller Center, or the ball drop in Times Square that marks the end of the year.
Last Christmas, the city already eliminated most of the restrictions associated with covid-19, but this led to a peak of infections that ran parallel to the busiest tourist days.
This year, the last institutions that still required the mask or vaccination card – theaters, mainly – have stopped doing so and the atmosphere is practically normal throughout the city, with the subway cars – a good thermometer of urban activity – increasingly crowded.
