New York City Economic Tracker: July 12, 2023

The New York City Economy Tracker is a joint project between Investopedia and NY1, using publicly available data to evaluate the economic health of the city across a variety of metrics.

For the week of July 12, 2023, we’re looking into how travel and tourism to New York City's major tourist locations hasn't fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

Visitors to NYC Tourism Destinations Still Lagging

Three summers after the COVID-19 pandemic, travel to New York City’s major tourist destinations such as Broadway, the Statue of Liberty, and Times Square, is still below its pre-pandemic averages. According to data from the Broadway League, average monthly attendance at shows is still more than 12% lower in June 2023 compared to June 2019.

Additionally, data from the U.S. National Parks Service shows that visitation to the Statue of Liberty National Monument, which includes both the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, is over 19% lower in June 2023 compared to four years prior.

Times Square has had fewer visitors, too. Data from the Times Square Alliance shows that pedestrian foot traffic at Times Square dipped 29% lower in June 2023 compared to June 2019. Although events in Times Square for Juneteenth, the summer solstice, and Pride restricted foot traffic to the area for the month, the monthly visitation numbers have been on the decline anyway compared to 2019 values since peaking at just under 9% below pre-pandemic levels in July of 2022.

Similarly, visitation at the Statue of Liberty National Monument peaked when it was almost even with 2019 numbers in January 2023, but has since regressed back to more than 19% below pre-pandemic numbers.

Although all of 2021 and most of 2022 saw major tourism rebounds to these three locations, overall tourism in NYC has yet to match 2019 levels so far this year. Recovering every part of the tourism economy is important for New York City, as tourism contributed an estimated $47.4 billion to the city’s economy and was responsible for about 7% of the city’s private workforce before the pandemic, according to a report by McKinsey & Co. To achieve this full recovery, transportation and lodging in the city must also return to pre-pandemic levels, which are yet to happen.

Plane Travel Is Up, But NYC Train Travel and Hotel Stays Continue to Lag

One of the main ways tourists and business travelers arrive in NYC is via Amtrak train. With the opening of the new Moynihan Train Hall on New Year’s Day 2021, there was hope that train travel to the city would recuperate passengers lost over the COVID-19 pandemic. However, according to Amtrak data, year-to-date revenue passengers on the Northeast Corridor—which includes New York City—are still almost 10% below 2019 levels through April of 2023.

Lagging travel to NYC has also impacted the occupancy rate at the city’s hotels. Data from hotel industry firm STR via the Times Square Alliance has shown that although the citywide hotel occupancy rate has climbed from 35.9% in May 2020 to 86.6% in May 2023, it is still slightly under the May 2019 occupancy rate of 92.1%.

However, one travel method to NYC has bounced back to pre-pandemic levels: air travel. Data from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey show that revenue passengers at NYC area airports—JFK International Airport, Newark International Airport, Laguardia International Airport and Stewart International Airport—were actually just over 3% higher in May 2023 compared to the monthly totals four years earlier.

However, looking at the airport passenger data broken out by traveler type, it’s clear that domestic passengers, which are up over 8% in May 2023 compared to May 2019, are making up for international passenger arrivals, which are still down about 5% during the same period. 

Since many international arrivals to NYC are often tourists with a propensity to stay at hotels and put substantial money into the city’s tourist economy, a complete return of international arrivals to pre-pandemic levels at the city’s airports will be key to achieving a full recovery in NYC’s tourism economy.