While tourists have begun returning, foot traffic into Grand
Slam souvenirs is still not what it was before the coronavirus pandemic, when
hordes of global visitors crowded under the canopy of electric billboards just
outside his door.
But the return of foreign tourists to a place popularly
called the crossroads of the world may help hasten recovery for businesses like
his — many of them mom-and-pop shops — that collectively employ thousands of
people and serve as one of New York City’s most important economic engines.
“We welcome them back with open arms,” Cohen said after the
U.S. began allowing vaccinated international travelers into the country this
month. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
Times Square has long stood as an emblem of New York’s
hustle and bustle. But as Broadway theaters shut their doors and the city
became an early epicenter of the global pandemic, 9 in 10 businesses in the
area closed, according to a district civic group, The Times Square Alliance.
“We really were were a symbol to the world of the pandemic
and the pause,” said Tom Harris, the alliance’s president.
Three-fourths of area businesses have since reopened, bit by
bit, as Broadway shows began reopening to vaccinated-only audiences.
Among those hopefully restarting are businesses that don’t
cater directly to tourists, but are part of the city’s entertainment ecosystem.
Sam Vasili’s Shoe Repair reopened last month across 51st
Street from the Gershwin Theater, where it had operated for three decades
before a long pandemic closure.
Owner Sam Smolyar was all grins on a recent afternoon as he
shared the news that a Broadway production set to reopen nearby had
requisitioned his help. For years, he helped outfit the Rockettes with
custom-fitted boots. “We rely on the theater, and on the businesses around
here,” he said.
He hopes more people buying tickets on Broadway will mean
busier times.
“It starts to get better,” said Vasili, who employs three
people at the shop.
Just before the COVID-19 outbreak, New York City was posting
record numbers of tourists — 66.6 million in 2019, including 13.5 million from
outside the U.S. Then the pandemic prompted severe restrictions on foreign
travel.
A marketing blitz has been underway for months to remind
Americans that New York City is again open for business and ready for the
visiting masses. Now the city is expanding its outreach to those outside the
U.S., who are especially coveted because they spend more time and more money
during their visits.
While domestic travel accounted for 80% of visitors, foreign
tourists account for about half of the city’s tourism spending and typically
represent half of all hotel bookings.
Harris of the Times Square Alliance said the district is
already rebounding. Since May, he said, the number of pedestrians counted in
some places has grown from 150,000 per day to as many as 250,000 — still far
below the roughly 365,000 people who tramped through the grid of streets before
the pandemic.
“Between the return of Broadway, the return of international
tourists,” Harris said, “we really expect to be at those pre-pandemic numbers
sooner than most people predict.”
Those returning visitors included people like Marina Galan,
who soaked in Times Square from the bleachers under a cascade of lights. She
and her friends flew to New York from Madrid on the first day U.S. borders
opened to vaccinated tourists.
“When you come back to New York, this is what you want to
see,” she said. “Everything is kind of back to normal.”
Her friend Pablo Leon said he was eager to return. The group
took a risk last March when they bought tickets for the Broadway musical
Hadestown, despite being uncertain about when they’d be allowed to travel to
the United States.
“That was the true gamble because we bought the tickets for
tonight, without any knowledge if we were going to be able to come here,” Leon
said.
NYC & Company, the city’s tourism agency, is spending
millions of dollars overseas to draw tourists back. It projects 2.8 million
foreign visitors by the end of the year, a sliver of the 13.5 million who
visited in 2019. With borders reopened, officials hope the number of visitors
will steadily rise over the next few years and again reach record levels within
the next four years.
“We’re hoping to do everything we can to accelerate that
timeline,” said Chris Heywood, the agency’s executive vice president.
The campaign is initially focused on Canada, Mexico, Brazil,
South Korea and parts of Europe, but will likely expand into other countries —
possibly into China, a particularly lucrative market because Chinese visitors
significantly outspend other nationalities.
Chinese visitors, however, may decide to stay put for now
because of quarantining requirements back home — at least two weeks when
returning from an overseas trip.
“Daytrips and domestic tourists are helping Broadway,
museums and restaurants, but New York can’t reach our pre-pandemic level of
visitors until international tourism returns in full,” New York State
Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said. “Reopening America’s borders is a big
help, but other factors, beyond our control, make it hard to see when we’ll get
back to the numbers we had before the world shut down.” -AP