New York City is a premium tourist destination, equally attractive to both first time and recurrent visitors (it offers a great mix of permanent and temporary tourist attractions). At the same time, New York City is also a major global business centre, and business visitors have a significantly higher spending power to regular visitors who travel for leisure. This paper studies New York City as a tourist destination from both qualitative and quantitative aspects, so it is broadly divided into two sections. The first, qualitative, section has the aim to describe the multiple reasons why New York is so attractive to tourists, setting it apart from other tourist destinations. This part studies the rich cultural offerings; famous city quarters, monuments and buildings; and the ways in which New York City is being branded and promoted as a tourist destination. The second, quantitative, part considers tourism in New York as an industry of a certain size and with certain characteristics which was constantly growing in the decade leading up to Covid-19 pandemic. The paper looks at employment in the tourist industry, ratio of foreign and domestic visitors, visitor spending, hotel accommodation options, and transport. The impact of the pandemic on this economic activity has been significant and relatively long-term. Current projections indicate that the level of pre-pandemic tourist industry won’t be reached till 2024 or 2025. Finally, the paper looks at resilience and potential of New York as a tourist destination, from the challenges in the past such as Covid-19 pandemic and the 9/11 terrorist attack, to potential future challenges.