CM Maloney questions OMB on tourism funding cuts and marketing investment

My last question, thank you, Chair, is around the revenue driver of tourism.

So New York City tourism was projected to reach 76 million visitors by 2026, but the city is roughly 10 million short of that projection.

Right now the plan has 28 million in...

28 million in the current year, which is decreasing from 23 million in FY27.

So why is the city decreasing support for NYC tourism and conventions, especially in this economic environment?

And can you commit to at least increasing the budget to prior year's levels?

Yeah, just so we can speak to the administration's support for increasing tourism to help drive tourism revenue.

Sure.

So we are in receipt of the request from NYC Tourism for

for additional funds.

We look forward to discussing that with you and the council in the weeks ahead.

Of course, we want to make sure that we have more tourists that are coming here.

I mean, obviously, a mix of federal policy and other reasons maybe aren't, you know, leading to

you know, not exceeding what previous levels have been.

We have been investing, or we have invested, obviously, it's not on a permanent thing, but with the World Cup, we've invested more in tourism that is being used for advertisement, particularly in international

destinations to make New York a tourist attraction.

Obviously, looking at more permanent investments and how we can bring tourism here on a regular basis in order to the benefit of the city because of obviously the tax revenue, so on.

So we want more tourists to come, and we'll be looking at that budget request along with you.

The last point I'll make is that cities that are much smaller than New York with far fewer hotel rooms are spending two to three X on their marketing budgets for tourism.

So I think it's something we should definitely have more conversations about.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.