2011 Record Year For Nyc Tourists

By Author: Steve Robinson
Total Articles: 468
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Discount hotel rooms and cheap vacation packages helped the Big Apple enjoy a record number of tourists last year. 50.5 million tourists visited in 2011, a number only exceeded by Orlando.

Orlando attracted 51.5 million visitors in 2010, making it the first destination to attract over 50 million visitors in a single year.

New York’s visitor count increased 3.5 percent last year, up from 48.8 million in 2010. Visitor spending rose by $500 million to an estimated $32 billion. Big Apple hotel occupancy averaged 85 percent, enjoying a 5 percent rise in the number of room nights sold. Airport arrivals through November increased 1.4 percent over 2010.

New York City continues to bring in the highest share of foreign visitors to the U.S. of any destination. One third of all overseas travelers to America (excluding travelers from Canada and Mexico) visited New York. Foreign visitors spent substantially more when visiting New York than domestic visitors. Foreigners spent an average of a little over $1,500 per visit in 2010, which totaled $1 billion, vs. domestic visitor expenditures which averaged $432 per ...
... visit.

Experts are projecting an increase of a little more than 3 percent in trips by international visitors to the U.S. this year vs. a little more than 4 percent up in 2011. The reduced forecasted increase this year is due to the economic problems in Europe.

Visits by travelers from Brazil, China and India are increasing in importance because these countries are recovering faster from the global recession that the rest of the world.

2012 is expected to witness 55 million people visit Orlando, with international visitors climbing by a little over 1 percent.
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