The Alliance for Downtown New York, in partnership with Audience Research & Analysis, has sought insight into the number and composition of visitors and tourists to Lower Manhattan on an annual basis. For 2022, Audience Research & Analysis estimated that 12.1 million people visited attractions, museums, and other sites in Lower Manhattan, a 59 percent increase from 7.6 million in 2021. These are not cumulative totals, but annual calculations of the number of unique visitors who typically went to multiple places during their time in Lower Manhattan. Excluding those who resided in the New York Metropolitan Area, 7.4 million “tourists” visited Lower Manhattan, a 30 percent increase over 5.7 million in 2021.
To determine the number of different sites visitors went to, ARA interviewed 2,952 non-group visitors (exclusive of people who lived or worked in Lower Manhattan) at 14 locations. We coupled this survey data with visitor counts shared by Lower Manhattan institutions and businesses such as Statue Cruises (embarking from Lower Manhattan), 9/11 Memorial Museum, Museum of Jewish Heritage, One World Observatory, National Museum of the American Indian, Governors Island (ferry passengers from Lower Manhattan), Port Authority for the Oculus/Westfield World Trade Center, and South Street Seaport. ARA has ten locations where its Intelligent Digital Counting system powered by Exteros operates year-round. For this study, we utilized the visitor counts from the Charging Bull Sculpture on Lower Broadway and Wall Street at Broad Street (by the NYSE) sensors. We supplemented automated counts with hand counts at the 9/11 Memorial Grounds and Brookfield Place. To complete the picture, we obtained non-rush-hour passenger data from the Fulton Street station, which we adjusted – through onsite intercept surveys – for those (1) not living nor working in Lower Manhattan and (2) not planning to visit one of the attractions for which we already had visitor data.