NYC & Company is a destination management organization in New York City that puts together programs that attract tourists to the city.
New York City, industries like hotels, restaurants, retailing, and Broadway shows all come together and finance NYC & Company, which then creates programs for marketing the city abroad.
They have done very creative partnerships with London. They exchange some advertising space on buses in New York City. So New York City buses are promoting London, and the same thing happens in London.
Reasons to come to New York City are plenty: there are attractions such as Central Park, 9/11 memorial museums, and events like the New York City Marathon in the first weekend of November, Fashion Week, and many others.
During these times, it’s very hard to get a hotel room, and even if you do, they’re pretty expensive.
Industries have to come together to make it attractive for consumers to come to New York City, because we compete against the likes of Paris, London, and Tokyo.
Luxury Hotels in New York City
NYC has 14 historic landmark hotels. There are the big ones like the Marriott Marquis, Sheraton, and Hilton, all of which have about 2,000 rooms.
There are also very boutique hotels with up to 20 rooms like the Casablanca library hotel at Times Square.
So how do consumers choose? They usually look at TripAdvisor and see the ratings! Interestingly enough, the #1 rated hotel on Trip Advisor is a small 10 room hotel on 44th Street.
There is a group of small hotels which get very high ratings on TripAdvisor.
Restaurants in New York City
There are about 26,000 restaurants in New York City, many of them in Manhattan. Every year, about 26% of this inventory of 26,000 restaurants closes and something new comes.
It’s a very competitive and creative market! If you want to be an entrepreneur in restaurant business in New York City, you have to create and innovate.
Companies like STL Steakhouse and Jonathan Siegel are at the forefront of innovation. Jonathan Siegel has created an amazing new concept: a steakhouse for ladies, breaking away from the traditional Smith & Wollensky style of older gentleman serving in long white coats and people with huge steaks. Instead, steaks are smaller and there’s seafood.
People come for food, but they also come to see other people. There are also very interesting restaurants that are vegetarian, and you have pockets of restaurants, like in Chinatown, which are very authentic, Little Italy and Koreatown.
While in New York City, you’ll never go hungry! You can get the total culinary experience for the six nights, seven days. This includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s your choice where you’re going to eat. Variety is key: you can’t be at McDonald’s every day for every meal, even if it’s a Happy Meal.
First, decide on the criteria, and it can differ. For breakfast, it could be maybe grab and go, fast. For lunch, it could be something healthy. For dinner, something where it’s more about the atmospherics, the feeling, the mood of the place, and the food.
In a one-page memo, you can give us the list and links to those restaurants. If you have a favorite dish or have some preferred aesthetics of a restaurant, illustrate that.
