Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, has brought forward the tourist target for New York by three years.

His announcement was in response to the record numbers of tourists visiting the city in the last year.  A new record was set in 2007 as more than 46 million tourists visited the city, generating more than £14.4 billion ($28 billion) in revenue and supporting over 370,000 jobs in the city.

The original target, set in 2006, was 50 million annual visitors by 2015, and the new target is to hit the 50 million visitors mark by 2012, three years earlier.

Bloomberg said

“New York City’s tourism sector is booming, with record numbers of visitors coming each of the last five years, even as the number of international visitors to the rest of the nation has declined.  That’s why we’re confident we can reach our goal of attracting 50m visitors to the city by 2012, three years ahead of schedule.”

So far, they appear to be on track with the first quarter showing good results for 2008 despite the credit crunch affecting many areas across the world.  New York City hotels have sold about 5.4 million room nights in the first quarter, which is approximately 5 percent more than the first quarter of 2007.