NEW YORK— NYC & Company President/CEO Cristyne Nicholas outlined immediate steps for rebuilding New York City’s tourism industry in the aftermath of September 11 before the New York State Legislature’s Tourism, Arts & Sports Development Committee. Nicholas also released the official post-9/11 tourism projections forecasting a 14% or 5.4 million visitor decline in 2001 visitorship over 2000 and a corresponding 12% or $2.1 billion decline in visitor spending. Nicholas proposed four initiatives to the legislature to address the challenges reflected in the newly released visitor statistics: — A $25-million allocation on behalf of New York State in its Fiscal Year 2002-2003 budget to support immediate, expanded marketing efforts to rebuild New York City tourism. NYC & Company’s 2001 operating budget of $12.6 million ranks it 16th nationally in city tourism marketing budgets behind cities including Orlando, Las Vegas, Chicago, Kissimmee, San Antonio, Reno and Los Angeles. This request is supported by a citywide economic impact study recently released by the New York City Partnership that highlighted the need for increased investment in the city’s tourism marketing efforts. — A sales tax-free week the week of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, January 20th, 2002, exempting retail goods under $1,000. The deepening recession and the dramatic decline in the international visitor market – responsible for 71% of all visitor spending on shopping – do not bode well for New York City’s retailers. In its most recent Holiday Sales Watch, the Retail Council of New York State noted that city retail sales have been considerably weaker than those in the rest of the state. Seven previous tax-free weeks were extremely successful, producing sales increases of up to 77% according to the Retail Council. — An immediate expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The limited exhibit and meeting space at the Javits ranks it 19th among North American convention centers. Chicago and Las Vegas, the top two cities in this market both have three million square feet of exhibit space compared with the Javits’ 814,000 square feet. In the last two years, New York City has turned away 42 potential events, worth more than $200 million in delegate spending, because the Javits could not accommodate them. At least 65 of the nation’s top tradeshows simply can’t fit in the Javits. — A dedicated funding stream for New York State’s “I Love NY” program. “Immediately following the tragic events of September 11, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, with a $153 million operating budget, was able to earmark $13 million for an emergency advertising effort to try to save jobs and attract visitors back to their city,” said Nicholas. “That stop-gap measure alone was more than New York City’s entire 2001 annual budget. Clearly a tourism industry of New York City’s caliber that last year generated $25 billion in economic activity and supported 282,000 jobs throughout the five boroughs deserves a tourism marketing budget on the level of our tourism competitors.”
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