Global Traveler: Tell us what led to your affiliation with NYC & Co.

George Fertitta: It was one of those serendipitous moments. Many years ago I used to own and run an advertising marketing company. I sold most of it in 1998 and the rest in 2005. I knew shortly after I made that decision that I was lucky to be in a position where I could do something that might be geared a little bit more toward giving back. I’ve always loved the city — I am a New Yorker — and I knew by chance some people who happened to be working in [City Hall]. I did not know Daniel L. Doctoroff, the deputy mayor in charge, but at the time three or four people had given him my name. When I put out the word asking if anyone knew of openings in the nonprofit area, I heard from City Hall almost immediately regarding this position and my interest in combining the three marketing organizations into one, with me as CEO.

GT: You have been the CEO of NYC & Co. since last summer. What sort of goals did you start with and how have they changed, if at all, since then?

GF: Initially, there was a very specific goal of 50 million visitors by 2015. I first met with all the individuals of the three organizations. I made an assessment of the town we had versus the town we needed. We changed approximately 40 percent of all the personnel, and we’ve become more of a marketing tribunal organization. We wanted to launch a global, multimedia campaign, which was very important because I had never before run an outreach campaign. When I asked my colleagues what the single most important thing we could do in tourism was, we went swift and strong and made the decision within 24 hours of being on the job to open up more international offices. That was very successful; I think our timing was excellent. Even this past year we just opened up in Shanghai, China; Tokyo and Seoul, South Korea; and we were the last U.S. city that would be allowed to open up in China. Another objective was to make the residents of New York more aware of the value of travel tourism through our campaign called Just Ask the Locals, which gets everybody involved in being supportive of travelers visiting New York City.

GT: You have innovatively merged the five boroughs of NYC into one marketable entity for tourists and visitors. What challenges did you face considering the reputation of NYC since 9/11?

GF: I think that the reputation of New York, even before I was here, has changed substantially from 9/11. I think 9/11 was one of our darkest moments, no question. Mayor Bloomberg and the Bloomberg administration immediately took over and absolutely and completely understood the requirement to get New York back on its emotional feet as well as its economic feet. You really have to give credit for the turnaround to Mike Bloomberg, Dan Doctoroff and Patty Harris, who were instrumental in its success. Since then, we have merged the five boroughs, but I don’t think we have the same challenges. Everybody knows Manhattan, people are getting to know Brooklyn, but not many people, especially international travelers, really consider Queens or the Bronx or Staten Island. So it’s our job to sustain this five-borough strategy and allow people to see all of what New York City has to offer, and the mayor has been very clear: New York City is much more than one borough. It’s five boroughs, and we need to promote them all.

GT: Please share with our global travelers what we can expect to see in the near future for NYC & Co.

GF: We’re evolving in many respects: we’re doing a lot of market segmentation, so you might see things directed at specific markets, whether it’s the gay-and-lesbian market, the elderly market or the youth market; whether it’s certain ethnic groups or markets on an international basis. Additionally to market segmentation, we are evolving to be a contentproviding organization. We’re spending millions and millions to develop a state-of-the-art Web site, which will be transactional in talks and negotiations with a number of mediumcontent- providing companies so that we will be our own content creator and provider. We believe we’re going to be part of popular culture in a very direct way. Just like Sex and the City had such a wonderful impact, from a popular culture point of view, on the image of New York City. We believe we will be creating our own forms of programming and content that will have the same kind of effect.