New tourism campaign says “Ask the Locals”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg would like city tourists to look to their left or right should they get lost. In a promotional campaign, launched on Wednesday, August 29 at JFK International Airport, Bloomberg told visitors to “Just Ask the Locals.”
The campaign, the city’s first-ever five-borough marketing and advertising campaign, will rely on the goodwill of New Yorkers and tips from celebrity city dwellers, like Tiki Barber, Robert DeNiro, Jimmy Fallon, Julianne Moore, and Chuck Close. One of the stars recommends the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona.
The campaign, which cost the organizers $5.7 million, also has a new website, www.nycvisit.org, which touts cultural attractions in Queens like Socrates Sculpture Park, the P.S. 1 Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Noguchi Museum. In a section dubbed “From Ireland to India in a Subway Stop,” the website describes diversity in Queens.
“Queens is the most ethnically-diverse 115 square miles on earth,” the packet reads.
The goal of the campaign, Bloomberg said, is to attract 50 million visitors annually by 2015. Last year, the city drew 43.8 million tourists, generating $24.7 billion for New York and supporting more than 368,000 jobs. However, international visitors - about 18 percent - account for nearly half of the money that came into the city.
“New Yorkers have always been welcoming and friendly, but not enough people around the world know it. So now we’re going the extra mile to make visitors feel even more at home by offering a helpful piece of advice, an insider’s tip, or just a friendly smile as they explore and enjoy all the wonderful attractions here in our city,” Bloomberg said.
“The terminal here at Kennedy forms a first impression for folks coming into this country,” said Gerard Arpey, Chair and CEO of American Airlines. “We’re giving visitors to New York City a great first impression with our state-of-the-art facility.”
The “Just Ask the Locals” campaign was launched in conjunction with the unveiling of American Airlines’ new $1.3 billion terminal at JFK, which will be able to handle 12.8 million passengers per year.
The new facility - Terminal Nine - has 84 ticketing counters, an 89,000-square-foot lobby with 65-foot ceilings, 44 electronic check-in kiosks and 19 international gates. Its customs facility can process 1,600 travelers per hour - 400 more travelers more than the previous system.
American Airlines will have donated $4.5 million in advertising space to the campaign by 2008, and NYC & Company kicked in an estimated $1.7 million worth of ads - to be placed on street poles, 200 phone kiosks in Manhattan, and 150 bus stop shelters citywide.