New York is suffering more from the pandemic crisis than any other city in the United States. This is the conclusion of an in-depth investigation by the New York Times, published on 21 June. According to the figures released by the daily, New York lost 11.8% of jobs between February 2020 and April 2021. To compare to a US average of 4.4%. The city is well ahead of Los Angeles (-10.5%), San Francisco (-10,3%), Boston (-9.9%) and Chicago (-6.7%).
Disappearance of the white-collar windfall
Journalists who have investigated in the city believe that New York's heavy reliance on travel for work and tourism is currently hampering its economic recovery. They estimate that thousands of jobs in restaurants, bars, shops and high street outlets are in fact linked to the presence of a million commuters working in Manhattan every day.
According to "Partnership for New York Cityan economic development group, only 12% of employees were back in Manhattan at the end of May. The figure should reach 29% by the end of July with the normalisation of the daily newspaper. However, Partnership for New York City expects that only 62% of office workers were in attendance at the end of September. And even then, 71% of companies would only bring their staff in three times a week.
A situation that puts hundreds of businesses at risk. The figure of 62% means that 300,000 consumers in the city will disappear. The authorities estimate that almost half the SMEs in the catering and tourism sectors have already disappeared.
The same applies to tourist bonanza that was Manhattan. According to NYC & Company, New York attracted 66.6 million visitors in 2019. The number of international visitors was 13.5 million, slightly down on 2018. The UK, France and Germany were the top three European issuing markets.
International tourism in disarray
Business travel accounted for 20% of all arrivals in 2019 - or 13.6 million travellers. Tourism generated more than $47 billion in direct expenditure, including $23.1 billion from international markets.
Unsurprisingly, the importance of tourism fell sharply in 2020. Last year, New York welcomed just 22.3 million passengers, down 67%. The fall is even more brutal for international tourism. The 2.4 million international visitors - mainly concentrated in January and February - represented a decline of more than 82.2%. Once again, this decline is affecting the entire travel sector - from airlines and hotels to taxis and restaurants.
NYC & Company is relatively unoptimistic about a rapid international recovery. According to its projections, total arrivals are expected to reach 36.4 million this year - including only 4.6 million international arrivals. New York would return to a level of arrivals similar to 2019 only in 2023.
However, there are a number of reasons for this, the recovery will be even slower for international tourismal. This would only return to its 2019 level between 2024 and 2025. In 2022, it would reach 8.3 million visitors and 11.2 million in 2023.
The same slow growth is seen in business travel. It fell to 3.3 million visitors in 2020 - a market share of 14.8% of all arrivals. According to NYC & Company, it is unlikely to return to its 2019 level before 2025.
The slow return of international visitors and business travel could continue to plague the economic future of the American megalopolis for a long time to come.
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