NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- New York City will launch a $30 million marketing campaign aimed at bringing tourists back to the five boroughs, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.
Approximately 400,000 jobs in New York City were dependent on the tourism industry pre-pandemic, including restaurant, hotel, Broadway and museum positions, de Blasio said at a news briefing Wednesday morning.
A new tourism campaign set to launch in June — dubbed “NYC Reawakens” — will draw travelers back to the city and help those industries “thrive again,” the mayor said.
“New York City is reawakening. We need to celebrate it, and we need to let people know we’re open for business, it’s safe, come here, join this amazing moment, come to this city that’s been so heroic during this crisis,” he said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. We know that. But it will happen.”
NYC & Company CEO Fred Dixon, who made a virtual appearance at Wednesday’s briefing, will be spearheading the campaign, the mayor said.
The rollout will include television and web advertisements, social media marketing and “influencer activations,” among other promotional strategies, Dixon said.
And while the initial focus will be on domestic travelers, the campaign will expand to target international travelers as pandemic-related restrictions are lifted, he noted.
“This will be the largest-ever campaign to promote tourism in New York City, and it will remind people this is the place to be,” de Blasio said. "There’s no place else like it in the world.”
“We’re going to remind people and they will come back,” he added. “If we build it, they will come.”