Hotel Occupancy Rate Up in New York City
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 9/5/2005
June tradeshows helped New York record its highest monthly hotel occupancy rate in history, 90.4 percent, a 3.2-percent increase over June 2004.
Along with a sizeable increase in summer leisure visitors, three Jacob K. Javits Convention Center shows — L!CENSING 2005 Intl. (No. 133 on the 2005 Tradeshow Week 200), BookExpo America (No. 82) and Buildings New York — drew a combined 60,000 visitors to the city in June, according to the city's convention and visitors bureau NYC & Co.
However, those visitors paid a price for the city's popularity: an average daily hotel room rate of $239.70, up 18.1 percent over June 2004, and the city's highest June rate since 2000.
In a July 31 radio address, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the June influx is expected to help the city break its record, set last year, of 36.9 million annual visitors. Nevertheless, Bloomberg added, "That doesn't mean we will just sit back and wait for our guests to show up. New York is in an intense, non-stop competition with other cities for tourist dollars."
NYC & Co. anticipates that 12 million visitors will give the city an average hotel occupancy rate of 87 percent for the 2005 summer season, up from 84 percent in 2004.
