Last week, Alain Tobier waited in line two hours to climb the Statue of Liberty. He marveled at the view from the World Trade Center and had his picture taken with a dinosaur at the American Museum of Natural History. But now he was concentrating on what really drew him to New York: shopping.
Standing at the counter at 47th Street Photo, Mr. Tobier, an aerospace engineer from Toulouse, France, looked through the viewfinder of the Pentax autofocus 35-millimeter camera recommended by a salesman. He had already bought an Epson portable computer upstairs. One of his companions was carrying a new Wilson tennis racquet in his bag. The other had a box of Timberland shoes.
"Everything is so much more expensive at home," Mr. Tobier said. "We have a list of all the things we're supposed to buy for our friends. This is so much fun."
Join the club. Tourists from abroad, spurred on by the fall in the dollar that makes many foreign currencies especially valuable here these days, are spending their francs, marks and yen more freely than ever this summer. Together with a revival in visitors from elsewhere in the United States, New York City appears to be experiencing its best tourist season in years.
"New York is the shopping mecca of the world," said Mitchell Moss, director of the Urban Research Center at New York University. "The decline of the dollar is doing more to boost tourism here than all the promotional campaigns put together."
To Brett Spencer, a journalist from London, New York is everything he expected -- and more. "It's too hot, too crowded and too noisy, and we can't get enough of it," said Mr. Spencer, 25, who was visiting the Empire State Building with his father. "People told us we'd either love it or hate it. So far, we love it."
Visitors accounted for more than $14 billion in economic activity in 1992, the most recent year for which figures are available, the United States Travel and Tourism Administration reports. Travel and tourism support 154,000 jobs, according to the City Economic Policy and Marketing Group. Cultural activities, heavily attended by visitors, add another 58,000 jobs. To put that in perspective, the entire banking and credit industry accounts for fewer than 150,000 New York City jobs.
Foreign tourism, which is up all over the country, is particularly important. While visitors from abroad made up only about 20 percent of the 25 million people who stayed overnight in New York City in 1992, the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates that they spent more than 40 percent of the dollars that tourists left behind.
Europeans account for the bulk of the visitors from abroad, but tourism officials also note that visitors from Latin America are on the rise. There has been a slight decline, they say, in the number of visitors from Japan.
This year, signs abound of increased visits by Americans and foreigners alike. Moreover, it is not just the World Cup, the Gay Games and other highly publicized events that account for the improvement. Hotel business is up sharply since the beginning of the year. After slumping from 1987 through last summer, hotel occupancy rates began to creep higher late in 1993. Now they are climbing steadily.
Despite a harsh winter, hotel occupancy rose nearly four percentage points, to 64 percent, during the first quarter this year, compared with the same time last year. In May, 77 percent of the roughly 65,000 hotel rooms in the city were full, according to the Pannell Kerr Foster consulting firm. That is up from 71 percent in May 1993, and just 68 percent the year before.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, noting an unusual number of European visitors, reported attendance up by 8.2 percent in the first quarter. Visits to the Statue of Liberty, which was closed frequently this winter because of harsh weather, nonetheless are running even with last year and were up by 4 percent in June, to 307,000, compared with last year.
High-Rising Attendance
Meanwhile, attendance at the Empire State Building, which reopened from repair work on May 20, has risen by 17 percent over the same period last year.
"This is turning into one of our best years ever," said Laura Fries, director of visitor marketing for the skyscraper. "The whole world knows about the Empire State Building. This is a true Tower of Babel."
It is not just international visitors who flock to the observation decks on the 86th and 110th floors. Chris and Cyndi Mooney, heading to upstate New York from Wilmington, Del., were not planning to visit the city this summer. But their daughter, Jenny, 5, persuaded them to spend a couple of days seeing the sights, specifically the Empire State Building.
"She wanted to see where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan met in 'Sleepless in Seattle,' " Mr. Mooney said. "How could we say no?"
To most Americans, New York stands out as perhaps the most expensive city in the country. The average hotel room rate today is $144. The cost of restaurant meals, from McDonald's to the Rainbow Room, is higher than elsewhere.
David Jackson, a director of a private school who lives in Corona, Calif., is still in shock. Hoping to save money, he stayed in Fort Lee, N.J., as his travel agent suggested. But the savings quickly disappeared, swallowed up by renting two cars and paying tolls and gasoline. He spent $455 for his family, which includes his wife and five children, to see "The Phantom of the Opera" on Broadway "and the seats weren't even that good," he complained.
Still, Mr. Jackson said: "Everybody needs to see New York at least once. There's nothing else like it."
To visitors from Europe and Japan, however, New York is a bargain. "Most things here seem pretty inexpensive," said Henning Groenbaek, a Danish visitor.
Most products like cameras and electronics equipment are heavily taxed in Europe and Asia, making them substantially more expensive there than in the United States. In addition, the exchange rate of most European currencies against the dollar is up about 10 percent since the beginning of the year, making goods bought in the United States even more of a bargain.
Yuko Kitani, from Osaka, Japan, has visited SoHo, Greenwich Village, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge and the World Trade Center in her two-week visit. "You can find something to do 24 hours a day," she said. When not sightseeing, though, she particularly enjoys shopping. "There are a lot of speciality shops," she said. "There is a shop for everything."
Indeed, foreign tourists appear to be on a spree. The amount of foreign currency exchanged last month at American Express offices in New York City rose by 25 percent over June 1993, said Nancy Muller, a spokeswoman for American Express. Part of the increase was a reflection of the World Cup games, she said, but not all of it.
Glenn Weilgus, a spokesman for the South Street Seaport, said the number of visitors at the enclosed marketplace, a prime tourist attraction, was up at least 5 percent from last year. "Foreign tourists just love American name brands," Mr. Weilgus said. "They go nuts in places like J. Crew and Gap Kids."
Adrienne Cleere, vice president of international marketing at Bloomingdale's, agreed. "We're even starting to advertise on CNN International in Asia, Latin America and Europe," she said.
Still, not everybody comes to New York just to spend money. Mirco Schumann is a schoolteacher who lives in the eastern section of Berlin, behind the wall before it was torn down in 1989. He said the high point of his trip with his parents, Dietman and Monica, was their visit to the Statue of Liberty.
"It was important to see the Statue of Freedom," he said. "For us from the East, freedom is more valuable than anything else."
