Wednesday, December 12, 2007

More Tourism for Sunset Park?

The following story just broke at the AP.

NEW YORK (AP) — Chinese citizens flush with cash from their booming economy will find it easier to vacation in the U.S. following a long-awaited agreement that the American travel industry hopes will bring in billions of dollars.

The deal, signed Tuesday by U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez in Beijing, will allow Chinese travel agencies to market packaged leisure tours to American destinations, and it will permit U.S. destinations to advertise directly to the Chinese public.


I would suppose that with the coming of so many Hotels into the Sunset Park area we can expect some of that tourism dollar to be dropping into the nabe. Do we need all this attention? What will it do to the neighborhood. And, while other areas are experiencing a building slump it appears our neighborhood does not appear to be a victim of it. At least not yet. Part of the explanation is that the areas where building is continuing is being driven by either Chinese or perhaps Arab money. Both groups that are culturally loath to borrow money and prefer paying cash so they are not influenced by the mortgage crunch.

It should be interesting to see, all these tourists in shorts with Hawaiian shirts snapping pics of the locals. Will the Chinese tourists be just the first wave? With the cheap dollar and the Euro priced so high maybe the Europeans may follow suit. OK so it's all a fantasy, or is it?

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