NYC tourism poised to tank as tariffs, stock market rattle travelers

Big Apple tourism is at risk of tanking as travelers get rattled by swooning stock markets and rising geopolitical tensions, according to industry experts and data reviewed by The Post.

Hospitality executives say it’s too early to call, but they’re increasingly on edge because of recent declines in hotel bookings, as well as drops in foot traffic and ticket sales to key attractions.

Just 22.5% of the city’s hotel rooms were booked for July as of April 7, according to industry data tracker CoStar. That’s down a whopping 11.5% from the same time a year ago, when 25.4% of rooms had been booked.

Travelers still may end up booking rooms closer to the date if consumer moods improve, according to Jan Frietag, CoStar’s national director of hospitality. Still, he said the data show how skittish travelers have lately become.

“We are not quite ready to call it a prolonged downturn,” Freitag told The Post. But New York City “probably hasn’t seen this kind of deceleration since 2020.”

The sluggish trend extends all the way to the holidays, with New York City hotel bookings for October, November and December down 20.6%, 19% and 19%, respectively, according to the data.

The Big Apple’s tourism bureau – NYC Tourism + Conventions – still expects the city to finally shake off its COVID hangover and exceed the 66.6 million visitors it lured in 2019. The city currently estimates that 12.9 million overseas travelers came to the Big Apple in 2024 versus the 13.5 million that came in 2019.

“We are committed to adapting to the ever-evolving landscape while continuing to market NYC worldwide,” said Julie Coker, President and CEO of NYC Tourism + Conventions.

Nevertheless, trade wars and hassles at US borders for overseas travelers are starting to take a toll, according to industry players.

The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island have seen ticket sales drop 5% through April, said Mike Burke, Chief Operating Officer of Statue City Cruises, which is owned by Hornblower. 

“All of our competitors and other attractions are down as well,” Burke said, adding that peers in the tourism industry regularly compare notes. “We share the trends and they are all headed the same way.”

Foot traffic in Times Square rose by just 1.8% this year through April 16 versus a year ago. That’s well short of the 7.3% jump it saw last year during the same time period, according to the Times Square Alliance.

At the Park Lane New York, which has stunning views of Central Park South, front office executives are worried about attracting visitors from the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico and Brazil this summer, said managing director Niles Harris.

“We are starting to see a pullback from those countries,” Harris told The Post. “It’s enough to get our attention.”

The Park Lane also is getting more queries over the phone from guests who are looking for deals and promotions.

“People are more value conscious than they were a year ago,” Harris said. “They want a better deal.”

Last year, New York metro area airports had their “busiest year ever” in 2024, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. New York City’s hotel occupancy rate of 84.3% in 2024 was the highest of the top 25 markets in the country, according to CoStar data. 

But business lately has ducked in and out of positive territory. This month, occupancy was 83.8% as of April 12, up 0.3% versus last year. In March, it dropped 1.1% after rising 2.3% and 1.3% in January and February, respectively.

“We are seeing the booking pace slow from Europe, Canada and Asia,” said one hotelier who did not want to be identified, adding that “NYC is a global city. The international segment is a very important business.”

New York City is hardly alone.

The number of non-citizen arrivals by plane to the US dropped by nearly 10% in March, according to data from the International Trade Administration. 

Canadian flight reservations to the US alone are down a whopping 70% through September compared to the same period last year, according to an OAG Aviation Worldwide report.

“US tariff announcements and a more aggressive stance toward historical allies have hurt global opinions about the US,” Goldman Sachs economists Joseph Briggs and Megan Peters said in a March 31 report.