New Yorkers will soon be tempted to visit Manchester and the wider northern region thanks to a new partnership struck up between the two cities.
From next month tempting messages to visit Manchester will be promoted across all five boroughs of New York City with messages advertised on bus shelters and Link NYC - the digital screens found throughout New York City.
The new collaboration will also see Manchester reciprocate by utilising its digital billboards, courtesy of Ocean Media and across TfGM (Transport for Greater Manchester) to promote New York as a destination.
The exchange of media assets, worth $500,000 in each destination, is part of a new collaborative relationship between Marketing Manchester and NYC & Company, New York City’s official destination marketing organisation.
It will see each destination work closer than ever to promote cross-Atlantic tourism, the exchange and sharing of insights and best practices in tourism marketing and destination management, including strategy around arts and culture, sports and LGBTQ+ travel.
The official city-to-city two-year tourism collaboration was signed by both organisations at an event held at CULTUREPLEX in Manchester.
“This is a really important partnership for us,” said Fred Dixon, president and CEO at NYC & Company.
Speaking to Business-Live ahead of the event, he said: “We’ve always known about the work that’s being done here in Manchester and we’ve watched the city grow. We intersect in a lot of areas whether it be in arts, theatre or with Pride, we’ve always hovered in each other’s periphery.
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“The 海角视频 is our number one market and it’s always been so. We are continually looking for new opportunities to grow and we’ve always recognised the north as an area of opportunity and to expand our presence here so when this conversation came up a year ago to work collaboratively - and with Virgin investing in the north - we saw this was going to be the ideal time to come together.
“Today is just the beginning of where we are going to take this.”
He continued: “One of the beautiful parts of this relationship is the media, which is the backbone of this partnership.
“New York has the largest outbound marketing in the US so for Manchester to have that exposure to everyday New Yorkers is a tremendous opportunity to find out about Manchester and thanks to Virgin expanding its capacity, it’s a city that is easy to visit.
“And we too are very excited to be able to message, for the first time, in a direct way to Mancunians and the people of the north about the exciting opportunities that are currently taking place in New York as we really do think we have a compelling message for the people of both cities.”
Equally, both Manchester and New York have a number of events and celebrations to mark in 2020.
New York City will celebrate several cultural milestones.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art and American Museum of Natural History will both commemorate 150th anniversaries while the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx will debut the first large-scale exhibition of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s engagement with nature, including new works created specifically for the exhibit.
The new Apollo Performing Arts Center in Harlem will debut this autumn, marking the first physical expansion of the theater in its 85-year history.
Additional 2020 developments include the observation deck Edge at Hudson Yards and the 50th anniversary of the New York City Marathon.
New York City has the most active hotel development pipeline in the United States, with approximately 123,000 hotel rooms currently and another 20,000 rooms on the way.
Recent hotel openings include Conrad New York Midtown, Equinox Hotel Hudson Yards, Hotel Hendricks, Hotel Indigo Williamsburg and Moxy East Village. This year, the city will welcome new brands Aman, Six Senses, and Virgin Hotels, among others.
For Manchester, 2020 represents a significant cultural shift for the city with over £200m investment bearing fruit.
This includes the opening of a new special exhibition gallery at the Science and Industry Museum; the reopening of Contact and Octagon theatres after significant upgrades; the expansion of iconic music venue Band on the Wall; the rebirth of the iconic Wigan Pier; and the phase one opening of Europe’s biggest heritage gardening project, RHS Garden Bridgewater.
Furthermore, the city’s food and drink scene will continue to flourish with the boutique, 40-room Stock Exchange Hotel offering food by acclaimed British chef Tom Kerridge, London’s Street Feast due to arrive in the city, and food tourists flocking to Ancoats to visit Mana, Manchester’s first Michelin-starred restaurant in over forty years.
Meanwhile, Hotel Brooklyn will make a splash when it opens in spring whilst several re-brands will see The Edwardian Manchester, Hyatt Regency Manchester and Hyatt House, and a new Kimpton join the city’s booming hotel scene, aided also by the introduction of several new U.S. brands including Hampton by Hilton and MOXY by Marriott.
All of this will be closely followed in 2021 by the opening of several new galleries at Manchester Museum, a new wing and restructure at Manchester Jewish Museum, and arguably one of the most significant cultural projects in Europe when The Factory, a highly flexible new arts structure designed by world-leading architects OMA, founded by Rem Koolhaas, opens.
Marketing Manchester has been delivering strategic and tactical marketing in the USA for many years.
This formal partnership is particularly as Virgin Atlantic will this year increase capacity by 65 per cent on their non-stop flight to and from Manchester Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Speaking about the benefits of the partnership beyond tourism, Sheona Southern, marketing director at Marketing Manchester, said: “Where cities can play a part into its regional and national growth has grown especially with city mayors which has really changed the landscape for cities in Britain.
“New York has had a mayor for a while and it’s really set the bar high.
“Mayors have a different power set. So when we went out to India and before that to China with Andy Burnham, the mayoral reception was seen as powerful for a city and the wider region.
"Our welcome, especially with so much going on with politics, makes those city relationships important and something to be recognised.”
She continued: “So for our internationalisation strategy, which is going into a refresh this year, we have three strands.
“Firstly there is the transformation of the airport which will see passenger numbers grow from 28m to 55m. That is hugely significant for the region.
“Secondly is the infrastructure of the city - we have more cranes than any other city in Europe - and Manchester's profile has never been stronger. With that comes more apartments, more retail space, more food and drinks offering and a growing stock of hotel rooms.
"And thirdly, we have a strong cultural offering and together you’re looking at an uplift of 4.5m visitors in the next three years alone.
“If all those things happen and we work together, we’re looking to strengthen not just Greater Manchester but the north too and so our relationship with the US and with Virgin is instrumental.”
Commenting on what he likes about Manchester the most, Fred added: “This is my third visit to the city and in many ways New York and Manchester are very similar.
“Even with shiny new buildings, like New York, Manchester has not lost its heritage, its grittiness, it always feels like home.”
The 海角视频 is New York City’s number one source of international visitation and in 2019, the city forecast visitation from this market to be 1.3m, an all-time high.
For Manchester, the USA is second in terms of the city’s top ten source markets for international visitors.