Mayor Eric Adams.
Credit score: Ed Reed/Mayoral Images Workplace.
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The hospitality and tourism business are the lifeblood of New York Metropolis’s financial system. After we got here into workplace three years in the past, our metropolis was rising from the depths of the pandemic. Streets had been empty and companies had been struggling to outlive — and our tourism business was hit onerous. However our administration went to work to construct a safer, extra inexpensive metropolis for working-class New Yorkers and their households. We labored to revitalize our business corridors, fill vacant storefronts, and enhance financial restoration throughout the board.
At this time, our financial system has seen a comeback like no different, with file job numbers and small companies, and our streets and subways are safer. Most importantly, our tourism business is again, and it’s booming.
In 2024, almost 65 million guests got here to New York Metropolis — the second-highest determine in our metropolis’s historical past and a 3.5 p.c enhance from 2023. New York Metropolis stays the worldwide capital for eating places, purchasing, sports activities, and leisure, and we’re presently on tempo to hit an all-time file excessive in 2025.
This previous 12 months alone, vacationers and guests generated an financial influence of $79 million throughout the town and the state, supporting 388,000 jobs in leisure and hospitality. Our small companies and minority- and women-owned companies throughout the 5 boroughs have benefited from these file numbers. Customer spending additionally generated greater than $6.8 billion in tax income, which helped save every New York Metropolis family round $2,000 in 2024. And we are able to’t wait to welcome the world in 2026 to the largest stage in New York Metropolis and New Jersey for the FIFA World Cup.
The power of our tourism business exhibits the power of our financial system and is the results of our efforts to put money into working-class New Yorkers whereas taking over crime and quality-of-life points. We all know {that a} thriving tourism business can’t exist with out public security. That’s the reason, this previous 12 months, we surged police into our transit system to tackle subway crime so New Yorkers and vacationers wouldn’t simply be secure however really feel secure as properly. And, consequently, transit crime was down 5.4 p.c 12 months so far, and we surpassed 1 billion subway journeys in 2024.
Extra particularly, our “Community Link” initiative — which works with a number of companies, in addition to group companions — is taking over quality-of-life points reminiscent of ghost automobiles, unlawful smoke retailers, and maintaining our streets secure and clear. This initiative has been terribly profitable within the Occasions Sq. space — issuing over 15,900 summonses, conducting over 1,070 operations, and resolving almost 730 complaints since launching in Could 2023.
Occasions Sq. is the “Crossroads of the world” and the entrance door and the welcome mat to our metropolis — a spot the place the hospitality, leisure, tourism, and enterprise industries meet. Thousands and thousands of vacationers proceed to go to Occasions Sq. and are sometimes focused by unlawful distributors and pedicabs, placing vacationers’ security in danger and undermining reputable enterprise making an attempt to make a residing. That’s the reason earlier this 12 months we launched “Operation Front Door,” a focused operation specializing in quality-of-life points in and round Occasions Sq..
We’re taking decisive motion to maintain our metropolis secure and extra livable for New Yorkers, vacationers, and companies. As we welcome hundreds of tourists to Occasions Sq. to observe the New Yr’s Ball drop and ring in 2025, we’ll proceed to ship security and affordability for working-class New Yorkers each day, in every single place.
