San Francisco Sightseeing Articles

Record attendance at the Museum of Modern Art and a "big summer" for out-of-towners at Nobu, where a plate of sashimi tacos costs $21, show New York City is fighting off forecasts of plunging tourism during the deepest U.S. recession in six decades.

Historically low crime, a 26 percent decline in hotel-room charges and the dollar's 13 percent drop in value against the euro since March will attract 44.7 million visitors in 2009, according to NYC & Co., the city's marketing office. That represents a 5 percent drop from last year's record, half the fall-off tourism officials feared in January.

The No. 1 U.S. destination measured by san fran tourist spending has attracted corporate meetings, while Las Vegas and Orlando have seen conference attendance decline at least 15 percent after members of Congress and Barack Obama, during his presidential campaign last year, criticized companies such as American International Group Inc., for holding events in resorts while accepting government bailouts.

"We're sold out for 11 of the next 14 days with corporate business, on top of the leisure visitors we've seen all summer," said George Kurth, manager of two Manhattan outposts of the Dublin-based Fitzpatrick Hotel Group in an interview yesterday. "Shoppers are out in force and while rates remain lower than last year, they're going higher."

Shopping Bags

Guests, particularly from Ireland and the U.K., where the pound has climbed 19 percent against the dollar since March 9, continue to walk into the hotels' lobbies toting shopping bags from Barneys New York, the chic Madison Avenue department store, and discounter Century 21 across from the World Trade Center site, Kurth said.

While NYC & Co. predicts tourists may spend about 10 percent less in 2009 than last year's $32 billion, the industry hasn't suffered the bust experienced by financial, real estate, fashion and media companies since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. last September.

"If you didn't have fairly robust tourism, the consequences would be layoffs at hotels and restaurants, and dark theaters," said Rae Rosen, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "It's a significant offset in an economy where other sectors aren't performing as well."

The influx of visitors has kept 314,600 working in the leisure and hospital industries, an increase of 600 in 12 months, according to the state Labor Department. The city has lost 173,000 jobs since July 2008, including 37,400 at financial companies.

10 Percent Drop

Tourists account for 38 percent of entertainment spending and 22 percent of shopping in a city where sales taxes provide 12 percent of revenue, according to the municipal comptroller's office.

Even with travelers' spending, city sales tax revenue decreased 10 percent, or $285 million in the first seven months of 2008, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reported Aug. 31. Yet enough visitors arrived to exceed budget officials' May 1 forecast that hotel rooms would be 72 percent full for the year after a 2008 record of 87 percent.

From April through August, average monthly occupancy rebounded to 86 percent from 63 percent in January, according to NYC & Co. Lodgings will be 80 percent full, on average, for 2009, spokesman Christopher Heywood said.

Fewer Rebukes

To fill rooms, Manhattan hoteliers slashed rates to an average $212 a night from January through August, compared with $286 during that span a year ago, according to PKF Consulting Corp., a San Francisco-based travel-industry research firm.

While lower prices attracted visitors, they also reduced the city's share of room spending. Budget analysts forecast New York would collect $344 million in hotel-tax revenue in the fiscal 12 months ended June 30. That is 9.2 percent less than the previous year's $378.9 million and about 5 percent short of the $361 million forecast by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's May 1 budget message. He is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

Travel promoters and meeting planners say New York's status as a financial center makes it less likely companies would draw rebukes of the sort AIG received last fall from Obama for an executive gathering at a California spa weeks after an $85 billion federal bailout.

'Limp Along'

Bank of America Corp., which got $45 billion from the U.S. Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program, decided in February to move a health-care conference to New York from Las Vegas, citing the "current business environment." Goldman Sachs Group Inc. also cited "the current environment" as the reason for switching an annual hedge-fund meeting from Miami.

"Companies fear they'll be perceived as being wasteful or flaunting their money," said Brenda Anderson, chief executive officer of the Society of Incentive Travel Executives, a Chicago-based industry group for corporate-meeting planners.

While Orlando, near Walt Disney Co.'s Disney World theme park, saw room occupancy on International Drive, the Florida city's hotel strip, fall 10 percentage points over 12 months to about 66 percent in July, Manhattan lodgings filled 82 percent of their rooms during the same period, 7 percentage points under the previous year, according to NYC & Co.

"Room rates being lowered hasn't counteracted the trend," said Brian Martin, spokesman for the Orlando/Orange County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

‘Limp Along'

Las Vegas airport passenger traffic fell 12 percent in the seven months through July, and the city received fewer year-to- year visits for 13 consecutive months, including 6.3 percent less in June 2009 than a year ago, William Anderson, chief economist for the Nevada Department of Employment, Training & Rehabilitation, said in an Aug. 21 report.

The decline pushed unemployment in tourism-dependent Clark County to 13.1 percent in July from 6.9 percent of a year ago, he said.

"The leisure and hospitality sector continues to limp along," Anderson wrote.

In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Statue of Liberty each reported more visits through June than last year.

Broadway theaters, where tourists comprise 65 percent of audiences, enjoyed record revenue of $943 million last season, a 0.6 percent increase.

The gain came even as attendance of 12.15 million was 12,000 less than in 2007, according to Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the Broadway League, which represents theater operators, producers and managers.
'Historic High'

"When people feel constrained and pinched, they look for satisfying experiences that feel rewarding," said Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art.

Attendance at the institution hit "a historic high" of 2.8 million in the fiscal 12 months ended June 30, beating last year's previous record of 2.67 million, said spokeswoman Kim Mitchell.

The American Museum of Natural History, with a suggested $16 admission price, has attracted 13,000 visitors a day since the July 1 start of its fiscal year through Sept. 4, a pace 9 percent ahead of 2007's 4-million record attendance, said Charles McClean, senior vice president of marketing.

"About six months ago, we were nervous our numbers would drop off a cliff, so we're pleasantly surprised," McClean said. "This summer, the numbers have soared off the charts." Foreigners account for 38 percent of business, he said.

The tourist trade is helping support luxury-goods retailers and restaurants even as the Russell 3000 Retail Industry index fell 11 percent in the past year.

Carrie's Manolos

At Manolo Blahnik on West 54th Street, the shoe retailer made famous by Carrie Bradshaw in "Sex and the City" where a pair of pumps costs $500 or more, tourists make up about 25 percent of the store's business, said George Malkemus, the brand's chief executive officer for the Americas. He declined to disclose sales figures.

"There's certainly been a fall-off, but they're still coming in to buy," Malkemus said. "We see a lot of spillover from the Museum of Modern Art across the street."

Half the diners at lower Manhattan restaurants, including Nobu, Tribeca Grill and Corton, come from out of town, said owner Drew Nieporent. "Visitors have made this a big summer for us," he said.

City officials helped persuade Continental Airlines Inc. to offer 400-euro ($574) round-trip flights from Amsterdam to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, 17 miles (27 kilometers) from Manhattan.
Henry Hudson

The promotion celebrates explorer Henry Hudson's arrival 400 years ago, with some fares discounted about 40 percent, according to David Messing, the Houston-based airline's communications director.

NY400, a six-day observance of the 400th anniversary of Hudson's arrival featuring music, sailing races, free bike rentals and museum exhibitions began today with an international parade of vessels and visits from U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima Zorreguieta of the Netherlands at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

"The value story is what we've been selling," said George Fertitta, the city's chief marketing officer. "Last year, with the dollar so much weaker than the pound and euro, the value was in shopping. Now the value is in experience."

Adele Sloan, who arrived in New York from Tyrone County, Northern Ireland with her husband and two sons in mid-August, walked through lower Manhattan, viewing the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 World Trade Center attack, Wall Street and New York harbor from the Staten Island Ferry.

Sloan, 48, a high-school principal who last visited the city in 1987, said she'd been so leery of crime she booked her family's room in Weehawken, New Jersey, a 15-minute bus ride away.

"I'm shocked at how safe I feel and how clean everything is," she said upon emerging from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. "We're not really shoppers. We want to experience the feel of the city."