New York To Have 90,000 Hotels Rooms by 2012

NY Daily News:  New York is on its way to having a record number of hotel rooms this year — and a good many of them will be in the outer boroughs.

The city will have 90,000 rooms by the end of 2011, Mayor Bloomberg said Monday, as tourism continues to grow despite a weak economy. The number of rooms in the city has grown 24% since 2006, according to City Hall. New York is also set to surpass last year’s record of 48.8 million visitors.

Speaking at the opening of the Z NYC Hotel in Long Island City, Queens, Bloomberg said the record number of rooms show how the city’s tourist trade is expanding beyond Manhattan.

“Our tourism sector employs 323,000 people, and those jobs are now increasingly located outside Manhattan as tourists want to visit all of the city’s great neighborhoods,” Bloomberg said.

About 40% of new hotel openings will be in outer-borough areas including trendy hotel-hotspot Long Island City, which now boasts 17 properties and has another five on the way.