Fred Dixon, who took over as president and CEO of New York's tourism marketing organization, NYC & Company, earlier this year, talked with senior editor Michelle Baran about the city's undyingly high rate of tourism growth and the organization's next steps.
Q: What are the biggest growth opportunities for New York's tourism industry?
A: The continued growth in international is so important for us. ... Couple that with the incredible growth we've had in hotels: There's no city in the country that's really adding rooms at the pace that New York City is adding year over year.
You combine that with all the amazing new attractions that are opening, like the 9/11 Memorial Museum; the Whitney Museum, which is relocating [from the East Side] down to the High Line [in Chelsea]; a gorgeous new Renzo Piano-designed building that's going to be the new anchor for the High Line; the High Line later this year is expanding in its final phase, northward toward 34th Street.
Ellis Island is reopening this year. For the first time, they're offering tours of the south side of the Island, which are the hospitals that were used for quarantines. One World Observatory, which is slated to open next spring, and all of the amazing developments that are coming to the World Trade Center. A year later, we're looking at the amazing development on Staten Island with the New York Wheel and the Empire Outlets.
There's really been no better time in New York City than what we're experiencing right now. And the world is discovering that.
Q: As one of the most visited cities in the country, Orlando notwithstanding, are you focusing more on international or domestic visitation for future growth?
A: It's a bit of both. Let's take the domestic market first. One of things that we've worked really hard on in the last few years -- because you mentioned Orlando, and not that we necessarily have Orlando in our sights, that's not the case at all; Orlando is a great destination -- but we really have targeted family travel as a specific area of focus for us. We've made slow and steady progress in promoting New York City for families, and we've seen it pay off.
Q: And international?
A: So Western Europe is the core, it typically represents, in an average year, half of our total visitation. But we realized [several] years ago that we were almost too dependent upon Western Europe and that there were tremendous opportunities in emerging markets around the world.
So we set about diversifying our international market mix to not only take advantage of growth opportunities in the developing world but also to hedge any fluctuations in our core markets in Western Europe. And it was a good move, because with the economic instability that's happened around the world since 2008, Europe has struggled as much as anyone in really getting back on track.
We invested heavily in Latin America. Brazil is one of the fastest-growing markets that we have. The U.K. is our largest overseas market, and last year we think they came in somewhere around [1.04 million] visitors, but Brazil was right behind them at 895,000. Behind that was France at 664,000, then China at 646,000 and then Australia at 619,000 and Germany at 608,000. Brazil and Australia five years ago were not even in our top five.
Q: What is your take on sharing-economy companies like Airbnb and Uber and their impact on the tourism experience?
A: I want to be clear on Airbnb. Much of their business is deemed to be illegal according to the laws of New York City and New York state. It's unregulated. And so until that situation gets sorted out, we're not engaging with them and we don't support their efforts.
There's no doubt the sharing economy is a big notion. Uber has been an incredible success around the world and is obviously very aggressive with what they're doing. And is offering a very competitive product. But they're also operating in an unregulated way.
So we just have to be cautious with companies like Airbnb. We are in direct partnership with the hotel community of New York and really operate in lockstep with them in many ways. And so until the situation with Airbnb is sorted, it isn't going to be a channel that we would endorse.
Q: What do you plan to do the same as your predecessor, and what do you plan to do differently?
A: The most important thing for me is the importance of the trade in our business and in our marketing strategy. The trade has always played a vital role for New York and always will.
Secondly, we're going to continue focusing on all of the new offerings in New York City that are throughout the five boroughs. This trend of experiential travel is here to stay.
Our world is changing in many ways, especially when it comes to the sharing of information. I think digital is going to become even more important as a strategic pillar going forward.
Follow Michelle Baran on Twitter @mbtravelweekly.