Island basking in the limelight

On their ride on the Staten Island Ferry yesterday morning, a couple from Florida got a special thank-you for coming to New York City from the lips of Mayor Michael Bloomberg himself.

But like many of the millions of tourists who hop on the free boat for its great views of the city skyline and New York Harbor, when they got to the St. George Ferry Terminal they simply turned around and headed back to Manhattan.

The city is hoping to change that.

Bloomberg made the unusual trip to the Island to announce the start of “Staten Island Discovery Tour,” a Gray Line trolley that will offer a 55-minute guided tour of the borough’s attractions. The hop-on-hop-off jaunt will include stops at Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden, Livingston; the Staten Island Zoo, West Brighton; the Forest Avenue business district, Fort Wadsworth and the Alice Austen House in Rosebank.

It’s all part of the city’s mass “Go Local” campaign, which aims to promote attractions in places that out-of-towners, and even New Yorkers, often overlook. In the coming weeks, the city will send out “Street Teams” to distribute maps, local guides and “Summer in the City” coupons, which will offer discounts for cultural institutions, restaurants and shops in every borough.

The hop-on-hop-off trolley ride will be free through Sunday, and will remain on the borough’s streets through the summer, running hourly from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The $15 fee will come into effect on Monday and buses will be staffed by tour guides prepared to give insight on the borough’s attractions and tips for out-of-towners.

“Staten Island is home to the best deal in New York. [The ferry] is a great way to relax and enjoy the city. … Now we want to take people to places they don’t get a chance to see,” Bloomberg said, at a press conference in the sweltering heat of the ferry esplanade yesterday afternoon.

EXPLORE AND SPEND

Borough President James Molinaro pointed out that as many as 1.5 million tourists a year ride the Staten Island Ferry, making it the third-most-popular attraction in the city, behind the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building — and that it has been his longtime goal to get some of those people to explore the borough, and spend money here.

“There was nowhere to go, and we tried almost everything you can possibly think of,” Molinaro said.

He added that this campaign is different because, for the first time, the city has established information kiosks at both the St. George and Whitehall ferry terminals to help steer folks to the borough’s hidden gems.

“What’s even more important to me, I see them spending a lot of money on Staten Island, at our restaurants, at our tourist attractions and helping the economy of Staten Island,” Molinaro said.

At Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George, a number of people attending last night’s concert by the New York Philharmonic, gave the plan thumbs up.

“It’s a good idea. It would get people off the ferry,” said James Cassidy, 59, of Concord. “But it should be advertised over in Manhattan to give people time to think about it. Most of the time people are more concerned about making the boat than anything else. This way it would give people time to think about it and plan ahead if they wanted to visit.”

Damiana Valentini, 31, of Manhattan, who previously attended the free Philharmonic concert at Snug Harbor, said with the Harbor being one of the scheduled trolley stops, she plans to come back — and she won’t be alone. “I would come back to Staten Island and to Snug Harbor and I would bring people from the city.”

Opined Suzanne Marsh, 39, of Westerleigh: “The only way to get around Staten Island is in a car, so this would be a good way for people to get a chance to really see [the borough].”

Ada Holliman, 60, of Port Richmond noted that the “Staten Island Discovery Tour” will introduce visitors to the “many exciting and historical things to do and see.”

SEEKING TENANTS

Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said the city will begin to seek tenants for the ferry terminal’s 21,000 square feet of retail space in spring 2009, another long-anticipated move to bring more revenue to the borough.

With Wall Street earnings recently taking a nosedive, Bloomberg’s administration has made it clear that the city will rely even more on tourism to prop up its flagging economy. NYC and Company, the marketing and tourism arm of the city government, extols the city’s virtues with ads in almost every major city, and from offices in 17 cities across the globe, from London to Shanghai. It seems to be effective: New York City remains the country’s number-one tourist destination, and international visits here have bucked the national trend, growing 34 percent since 2000. During the same period, the number of international tourists to the United States fell by 8 percent.

Attracting foreign visitors is critical, Bloomberg said, because data indicate that they spend, on average, four times as much as domestic tourists.

“If you are a domestic tourist, we love you. But if you are a foreign tourist, we love you four times as much,” he quipped.

BASEBALL AND BON JOVI

This summer, New York will look to reap the benefits of its latest attractions: The New York City Waterfalls exhibit in the New York Harbor, Saturday’s free Bon Jovi concert in Central Park and next week’s Major League Baseball All-Star game at Yankee Stadium. They expect to exceed the 46 million visits they received in 2007.

All told, tourism generates 370,000 jobs and is expected to provide about $31 billion in revenue for the city this year, up from $28 billion in 2007, according NYC and Company estimates.

Bloomberg also noted that the city will have to do even more to capture the tourist dollar, especially when so many families are worried about their finances.

“We have to be careful about what we spend. … A lot of people who want a vacation but don’t want to go very far can have that experience in New York,” he said.

By PETER N. SPENCER

Staten Island Advance