Summer Tourism Down Less Than Expected; Hotels Still Empty

Labor Day has passed and summer's unofficially over, and tourism advocates NYC & Co. tell Bloomberg News things haven't gone as badly as they'd feared: they were predicting a ten-percent drop in visitor dollars -- and pleaded for New Yorkers to make up the shortfall by staycationing -- but they now expect a fall-off of only five percent. New York's dismal hotel occupancy numbers are still down -- the most recent Smith Travel Research analysis for August 23-29 showed a year-over-year decline of 29.1 percent; this year's later Labor Day may have had something to do with that, but as many hotels slashed rates this summer, it's still not a good sign. Maybe those spending tourists flopped on friends' sofas.

Some visitors from New York took the battle to Antigua this weekend: six Brooklynites who had arrived there on a Carnival Victory cruise ship got into a dispute with a cab driver over a fare, leading to a melee with police. The tourists are charged with malicious damage, battery of an officer, resisting arrest, refusing to give names and addresses, disorderly conduct, and indecent language.