Celebrities

De Niro, Streep and others come together to push NY tourism

ALBANY — The A-listers are vouching for New York state.

In a new $45 million push to promote tourism, seven well-known celebrities who are state residents will appear in commercials touting the benefits of visiting the Empire State.

The bold-faced names stars include Robert De Niro, Billy Joel, Meryl Streep, Steve Buscemi, Ed Burns, Vanessa Williams and Michael Strahan, who says his favorite thing to do is “surf on Long Island.”

The tourism budget is a 50 percent boost from the 2013 promotional blitz that Gov. Cuomo says generated $59.2 billion in spending.

That, in turn, produced $7.5 billion in state and local taxes, Cuomo’s office said.

The number of visitors to the state reached 218.8 million in 2013, up 8.8 million from the previous year, according to officials said.