As we wrap up 2021, we look back at a year full of challenges, but also a time with many green shoots of growth—the return of Broadway, the return of international travelers, the return of New York City tourism. Even in the context of the Omicron variant, there remains plenty of supporting data indicating an ongoing return for New York City. Despite the high-profile Broadway cancellations of the last few days, and the early end of the Rockettes's run, a look at the Broadway League's new resource for schedules shows the majority of shows going forward as planned. (And grosses have been up, while capacity holds steady.)

The major question for tourism right now is whether Omicron is another Delta—suppressing travel and spending—or whether this variant will prove to be a milder version with less effect on New York City. Early reports are favorable from a tourism perspective.

As we come down the homestretch on 2021 we are feeling thankful at City Guide. Thankful for the return of international tourists. Thankful for vaccines and the new treatments that will allow us to come together again. Thankful for governmental support and its promotion of our city. Most of all we are thankful for our colleagues and all our loyal partners. As we reflect with friends and family this weekend, we will feel grateful we have such a strong, vibrant community in New York City tourism, one that has better times ahead on the near horizon. 

As much as I’d like to dazzle you with a complete list of Broadway previews, openings and re-openings, the current roster is far from complete. Still, considering the Great White Way has been dormant for over a year and a half, the evolving influx of announcements is dramatically optimistic!

Canadians Irene Sankoff and David Hein bring an uplifting look at the September 11th attacks in their hit Broadway musical Come From Away.

A shiny New Year has arrived, urging us to plunge (headlong or otherwise) into our annual list of resolutions. Dieting and de-cluttering aside, I recommend tackling the fun stuff first, especially the resolve to up our live entertainment ante—New York City theatre in particular.

Après the Tonys…Thrill? Relief? Letdown? Opportunity? The latter, of course, has much to do with taking on uncharted Broadway by scoring tickets to the 2019-2020 season’s first wave of shows.

On the night of September 11, 2001, after the World Trade Center landscape had been desecrated into Ground Zero, Canadians Irene Sankoff and David Hein and a handful of their fellow NYC students sat around a piano letting music mitigate their emotions.

Heaven for Parrot Heads (usually wherever Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band are playing) has a new home in New York. At Broadway’s Marquis Theatre you’ll find Buffet’s rom-com musical Escape to Margaritaville, which uses his familiar songs about island getaways, grapefruit, pirates, and lost shakers of salt to breathe joyous, relaxed life into a rather enchanting love story with no shortage of comedy on the side.

Long-awaited Broadway blockbusters; adored stage and screen performers; the world’s best theatre companies stretching from one end of the island to the other…welcome to February, Manhattan-style. Here, even frigid pre- and post-Valentine’s Day temperatures don’t stand a chance against the sizzling love fest sweeping New York’s stages this February.

Thanks to a scorecard of white-hot shows laced with a jolt of celebrity voltage, Broadway is positioned to become a mega theatre mecca for January, 2018.