LONELY PLANET has just named New York City as its number one city destination for 2011.
The reason: the reopening of the World Trade Centre site as a National September 11 Memorial with a six-acre, tree-filled plaza with 30ft-deep waterfalls at the footprint of the former towers, rimmed by the name of each victim and illuminated at night (a museum will follow in 2012).
For the city, this will be more momentous than if the Yankees, Knicks, Rangers and Giants won simultaneous championships while the ball dropped in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, says Lonely Planet. “For all of New York, 11 September 2011 will be a defining moment.”
Tangier, Tel Aviv and Wellington, New Zealand, also came out high in the Top Ten Cities lists, which also featured surprise cities like Australia’s former steelworks city of New Castle and the Belgian city of Ghent.
Meanwhile, a survey carried out by Irish travel website lastminute.com, shows that the number of people planning a Christmas shopping trip to New York has fallen by half on last year, with 62 per cent of people saying it’s because they just don’t have the money.