See, SUBWAYblogger wasn’t full of crap when we said that the city was feeling more crowded than ever. Mayor Bloomberg just announced that the city had about 44 million tourists come to visit in 2006, and that’s a smashing new record. Last year was about 41 million.
Interestingly, NYC & Company (the company designated to help the city hit the 50 million tourist mark by 2015) is starting the city’s first international tourism campaign. The company is buying tons of advertising in Europe to attract foreign travelers.
7 Million of this years visitors were from outside the U.S. 1.2 of the visitors from abroad were from the U.K. alone! That explains the much of the subway crowding in the tourist areas. British travelers are familiar with “The Tube” so they are more likely to take the subway. (Probably the French too, but who knows how many of them are traveling to the USA these days.)
So with a new, aggressive ad campaign planned to bring foreign travelers into the city, one can only assume that the subway and other public transportation will become more crowded.
Hey, the hostiles hostels are probably getting a bit more business too with all the backpackers!
I am a former subway rider. I used to ride subways at least twice a day, as my work place was in Chelsea. But since last year or so, my work moved to the area I live, and so I have no use of subway anymore, unless I’m shopping in Manhattan.
SUBWAYblogger 