Metro

Apple’s ‘tour’ de force

(
)

You’re not imagining things if you think every other person in Midtown and downtown these days is a head-craning tourist.

Preliminary figures released yesterday by NYC & Co., the city’s tourism agency, show that the Big Apple played host to a record 48.7 million visitors last year, beating the old record of 47 million set in 2008 and up 6.8 percent over the 45.6 million of 2009.

“In many categories, this was a year for the tourism record books,” Mayor Bloomberg said during a press conference at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

The city remains the No. 1 tourist destination in the United States.

In fact, 33 percent of all overseas visitors to the country come to New York, compared with only 11 percent for the second-place cities of Miami and Los Angeles. A record 25.7 million hotel-room nights were sold last year in New York. The occupancy rate hit 85 percent, or 25 percent above other major markets.

Total tourism spending reached $31 billion, a 10 percent increase over 2009.

Best of all, the industry added 6,600 jobs to bring its total to 320,500 — accounting for one of every 10 private-sector jobs.

Britain, as usual, provided the lion’s share of the 9.7 million overseas visitors.

But the strongest growth came from China, South Korea, Australia and Brazil, according to NYC & Co. chief George Fertitta.

Foreign visitors are prized because they spend about two and a half times as much as domestic tourists.