NEW YORK — Outbound travel from Canada to New York City is forecast to top the 1 million mark this year after a strong showing in 2017 with some 970,000 Canadians making the trip to the Big Apple, according to the latest stats from NYC & Company.

New York City welcomed a record 62.8 million visitors in 2017, up 2.3 million year-over-year and marking the eighth consecutive year of visitation growth for both domestic (49.7 million) and international (13.1 million) markets, both at all-time highs, says NYC & Company.

International travel started the year slowly but ultimately surpassed the 13 million mark – a 3.4% increase – driven by solid regional growth from Asia and South America, together with a turn around from Canada.

Looking ahead to the end of 2018, international travel growth (+4.1%) is expected to outpace domestic visitation growth – if current global economic and policy conditions hold – for the first time since 2013.

NYC & Company also says it expects business travel growth to outperform leisure travel growth for the first time since the Great Recession (4.2% year over year compared to 3.6%).

Robust hotel supply increases were met with strong demand growth. Average daily rate (ADR) recovered by Q4, to end the year at an average of US$277. And occupancy outperformed 2016 results as guests benefitted from an increasingly diverse offering of hotel brands, locations and price levels, says NYC & Company.

“We’re keeping our door to the world open,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “Even with all the headwinds from the White House, we attracted a record number of visitors to our city. That’s a testament to the strength of our tourism sector and the values of our city.”

In 2017 NYC & Company launched two campaigns, ‘New York City – Welcoming the World’ and ‘True York City’, which helped position NYC as a must-visit destination despite challenges in the geopolitical climate and changes in travel policies. The campaigns helped “reaffirmed our commitment to being an open and welcoming global capital,” said NYC & Company President and CEO Fred Dixon.

New York City has the most active hotel development pipeline in the U.S. and even with the 4,000 new rooms added to the city’s hotel inventory last year – bringing the total to nearly 116,500 rooms – demand remained strong. Last year, the city sold a record 36.4 million hotel room nights, a 4.5% growth from 2016.

Also last year some 6.2 million meetings and conventions delegates visited the city’s five boroughs, contributing to the total 13 million business travellers that came to New York City.

NYC & Company also signed several international City-to-City tourism partnerships including a new deal with Toronto.

Several new Midtown attractions made their debut in 2017 including National Geographic’s Encounter: Ocean Odyssey, the NFL Experience, Opry City Stage, Gullivers Gate and Spyscape. Mayor de Blasio also launched the NYC Ferry last May, offering the public more ways to access the City’s diverse neighborhoods through its waterways. NYC & Company continues to promote future developments and cultural offerings across all five boroughs to its global audiences under the banner of the ‘New New York City’.

NYC & Company’s 2018 forecast anticipate another year of growth, with a 3.7% increase to 65.1 million visitors.