BRONX, N.Y. — Walking around here on a spring day, I wondered: Will tourists in New York really venture to the South Bronx?
The borough is best known for its iconic baseball team, the New York Yankees, aka the Bronx Bombers, but beyond that has not offered much allure for visitors to the Big Apple.
Will tourists venture here to the Bronx Museum of Art when world-class spaces like the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art are only miles away in Manhattan? Will they come to sample Italian pastries in the Bronx's Arthur Avenue section, in lieu of lower Manhattan's Little Italy?
NYC & Company, New York's tourism marketing organization, is not only betting that they will come to the Bronx but that they will also venture into neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island.
There are many reasons the organization is pushing visits beyond Manhattan and its popular sites — the Broadway theater district, Central Park, Museum Mile — and into what New Yorkers refer to as the "outer boroughs."
"We've reached capacity in Manhattan, and we want to makes sure we are driving people to all parts of New York," said Kimberly Spell, chief communications officer for NYC & Company. "We see how crowded the streets and sidewalks can be in midtown, and we know how amazing parts of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx are, and we want to make sure we are sending our visitors there."
Tourism to New York is at an all-time high. In 2006, 42 million people visited the city. By 2012, that number had jumped to 52 million, making New York the nation's most visited city and surpassing New York's original goal to attract 50 million by 2015.
That goal has now changed. The city currently aims to raise the economic impact of tourism to $70 billion in 2015, up from $56 billion in 2012.
Looking at the strength of New York's repeat visitor market, a campaign to get tourists to other parts of the city makes even more sense.
"We can only get people to come back again and again if they feel like there is something new to explore," Spell said. "It's important to repeat visitation to focus on experiences outside of Times Square and the Statue of Liberty. We continue to promote those areas, but for the third- and fourth-time visitors from the U.K., we want to create an experience and attract them to our hidden gems outside of Manhattan."
NYC & Company wants visitors to not only visit, but to sleep in the outer boroughs. Since 2006, 30% of hotel development in the city has been outside of Manhattan, with 33 more hotels slated to open through 2016.
Spell pointed out that the city's hotel occupancy rate in 2012 was 86.7%, the highest in the nation. Nationally, hotel occupancy rates tend to hover in the 60% to 69% range.
As occupancy has skyrocketed in Manhattan, prices have followed, with an average daily rate now around $281. Outer borough hotels give tourists more affordable options that are still within city limits.
NYC & Company's campaign, Neighborhood x Neighborhood, focuses on a different part of the city every month. Most are in the outer boroughs, but some, like this month's spotlight on lower Manhattan, are areas of Manhattan the organization feels are deserving of more attention.
Follow Johanna Jainchill on Twitter @jjainchilltw.