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.
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
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