Start Spreading The News: Travelers Are Back In Gotham But Their Plans Have Changed

The Twist? Visitors Want More Than Ever.

We knew New York’s travel industry would recover from the pandemic—Gotham is the most visited city in the Western hemisphere.

McKinsey recently published an updated perspective about the Big Apple’s travel and tourism sector, showing a rebound from its pandemic lull. Our report states that about 62 million travelers arrived in 2023, 93 percent of 2019 levels, including more than 11 million from overseas. While international arrivals are only 86 percent of 2019 levels, these visitors spent almost three times more than domestic travelers, proving that the city retains its international appeal.

What we didn’t know was how travel plans and trip itineraries would change. Times Square and the Empire State Building are still top draws, but more visitors are now venturing beyond Manhattan, staying longer, spending more time outdoors, and looking for more novel, immersive experiences.

These have important implications for the travel and tourism industry—and New York’s economy. Tourism generated $74 billion in economic impact in the city in 2023, and it’s on track to set new records with 68 million visitors in 2025.

New plans and horizons

While Manhattan is still uniquely appealing, many visitors are also looking farther afield and taking their time to enjoy more of what the metropolitan area has to offer. United States mobile data from Placer.ai suggests that four of the city’s five counties, along with Nassau and Suffolk on Long Island, hosted more visitors in 2023 than in 2019—Manhattan was down. The number of domestic visitors who stayed in the city between 8 and 31 days increased to a million in 2023, up from 700,000 in 2019.[1]

More travelers are enjoying Prospect Park and Brooklyn Botanical Gardens in Brooklyn, for example, and Major League baseball in the Bronx and Queens. The department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation reports that visits to state parks in the city have roughly doubled since 2019. The High Line is projected to reach visitation levels of 7 million this year. Demand is also rising for day trips outside the city to places such as Dia Beacon, a contemporary art museum in the Hudson Valley, wineries in Long Island’s North Fork, and more.

In our 2024 survey of 5,000 travelers around the world, 20 percent ranked “authentic experiences and immersion in the local culture” among the three main reasons they travel; 63 percent ranked the quality and range of activities “important” or “extremely important.”

New York is responding, offering more innovative, “Instagrammable,” tech-enabled experiences to help visitors connect with the city. RiseNY in Times Square, for example, sends visitors “soaring” over the city to learn about its history and sites. Classic sites are also reinventing themselves to create a reason to revisit. The Top of the Rock, for example, opened “The Beam,” in late 2023, offering visitors a thrilling way to recreate the famous 1932 photo of construction workers eating lunch 69 stories above the sidewalk.

Five ways to build on the city’s travel renaissance

• Connect with visitors before they arrive. Travelers tell us they truly enjoy planning their trips, and many look to social media for inspiration and recommendations. Many providers can do more to get on visitors’ must-do lists before a trip begins—and spur people to promote their experiences during their visits and after they get home.
• Harness technology to enrich every visit. More visitors want an “inside track” to experience New York like a local and do things they’ve never done before—and technology can help make it possible. An AI-powered tour guide, for example, could be hyper-knowledgeable about New York, customize each itinerary to the user’s tastes and preferences, and recommend must-sees off the beaten path. New York makes for an ideal testbed for such an offering because the city presents visitors with such a bewildering array of options and attractions. Stakeholders could join forces to memorialize and digitize their “local perspectives” to gain new customers and drive loyalty and spend.
• Expand beyond Manhattan. As more travelers look across the East River, hoteliers, experience providers, and transport players can develop new offerings off the island, from immersive outdoor art galleries to thrilling, tech-enabled experiences. More affordable accommodation in the outer boroughs could appeal to visitors discouraged by Manhattan prices, now at all-time highs.
• Forge partnerships to offer seamless and bespoke experiences. Navigating the city and its attractions can be challenging. Events such as the 2026 FIFA World Cup Final, which may bring in a million additional visitors, only increase the need for more seamless experiences in the city. Airlines can partner with local transit players to be a part of travelers’ journeys long after they get off the plane; hotels can do more to help guests get reservations at top restaurants; venues can offer more behind-the-scenes access and immersive experiences enabled by augmented reality tech partners or that elevate visitors’ senses with sound or visual design.
• Invest in talent to create authentic experiences. The city’s tourism-related employment is still down 10 percent from 2019, with full-service restaurant staff turnover higher than the US average at more than 30 percent. Leading travel providers know that talent, especially front line, is a powerful way to “surprise and delight” travelers, from knowing their names to telling them where to find a speakeasy (and how to get in).

New York City has enduring appeal, but we also know the world is changing faster than ever. Maya Angelou famously said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” The same holds true for New York City. Travelers won’t remember every detail of a trip here, but they will remember how the city made them feel. Leaders in New York’s travel and tourism industry can work together to help visitors enjoy a new world of attractions and experiences alongside the city’s enduring bustle, unique diversity, history, and glamor.

I would like to thank my colleagues at Jules Seeley (Senior Partner), Alex Cosmas (Partner), Rebecca Stone (Associate Partner) and Andrew Shearer (McKinsey Communications) for their contributions to this article.