The city’s tourism promotion agency, NYC & Company, estimates that the number of visitors will increase again this year, to a record 61.8 million, from 60.5 million in 2016, an increase of slightly more than 2 percent. That would make 2017 the eighth straight year in which tourism hit a new high, NYC & Company said.
The projected annual increase in tourism this year will come despite the first decline in the number of international visitors to the city since 2009, said Fred Dixon, NYC & Company’s chief executive. Mr. Dixon said the agency now expects a decline of about 100,000 foreign visitors in 2017, compared with the decline of 300,000 it had feared earlier this year as a result of the “Trump effect.”
Mr. Dixon said he believes that the strength of the American dollar, which has reduced the buying power of some foreign currencies, was an important factor in the decline in international travelers. But he said he remains concerned that the Trump administration has not welcomed foreign visitors.
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