NEW YORK CITY-Tourists pumped an estimated $31 billion into the local economy as the number of visitors here reached a record-setting 48.7 million, the Bloomberg administration said Tuesday. These figures would have been notable in, say, 2006 or 2007, but in fact they were racked up over the course of 2010, as the US continued its climb out of the Great Recession.

By contrast, a year earlier the administration was trumpeting the fact that 2009 tourism figures hadn’t diminished as much as was feared. The 45.25 million visitors to the city in ‘09 represented only a 3.2% drop from 2008, versus the 10% decline that was projected at the start of ’09. The figures for this past year represented a 6.8% increase over the year prior, surpassing early projections of 47.5 million. Thirty-nine million of the visitors to the city in ’10 were domestic, a new record.

At a ceremony Tuesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the strength of the city’s tourism sector was one of the reasons New York City was less affected by the recession than other cities. Unsurprisingly, the hospitality sector was a key beneficiary of the increases in both domestic and foreign visits to the city. “We’re constantly looking for ways to strengthen and diversify our economy, and growing our tourism industry is an important part of that work,” Bloomberg said at Tuesday’s ceremony.

The city’s hoteliers sold 25.7 million room nights last year, a new record that exceeded last year’s previous high by two million room nights, according to figures from NYC & Co., the city’s official marketing and tourism arm. The increase in sales didn’t come at the expense of discounts; in fact, average daily room rates citywide rose to $330 as of December, a year-over-year increase of 8.9%.

Nearly 7,000 new hotel rooms were added to the city’s inventory during the course of the past year, a 7% gain over ’09 and a greater year-over-year increase than the 6% seen in ‘09. The new inventory brings the city’s supply to just under 90,000 keys. Nationally, hotel supply was expected to grow only 2% for the year, according to figures released last month by Colliers PKF Hospitality Research.  

The hospitality industry here added 6,600 jobs over the past year across all industry sub-sectors, bringing industry employment to a new high, according to the Bloomberg administration. With hospitality employment traditionally highest during the summer months, this past July set an all-time record for total jobs with 323,200. The Bloomberg administration said the annualized average employment level for ‘10 through November was 315,000, also an all-time high, while the full year is expected to set a new record when December job data is released later this month.

The past year’s tourism sector performance puts the city on pace to meet the Bloomberg administration’s goal of 50 million annual visitors by 2012. Bloomberg set the goal in ’07, prior to the onset of the global recession.