{"id":153662,"date":"2025-08-17T17:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T17:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/153662\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T17:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T17:41:09","slug":"offbeat-nyc-graffiti-tour-survives-despite-predicted-drop-in-foreign-tourism-thanks-to-visitors-from-this-country-theyre-obsessed-with-street-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/153662\/","title":{"rendered":"Offbeat NYC graffiti tour survives despite predicted drop in foreign tourism thanks to visitors from this country: \u2018They\u2019re obsessed with street art\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

These tourists see the writing on the wall.<\/p>\n

French art lovers are flocking to industrial Brooklyn in droves for quirky walking tours of warehouses sprayed with graffiti and street art.<\/p>\n

The niche fascination is still going strong despite a major industry group projecting a nearly 20% drop<\/a> in overall foreign tourism to the Big Apple this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Audrey Connolly of Graff Tours leads a tour of street art and graffiti in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Stephen Yang<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many people in France that are obsessed with graffiti and street art: It\u2019s been a huge part of our business for years,\u201d Bushwick-based Graff Tours tour guide Audrey \u201cByte\u201d Connolly told The Post.<\/p>\n

Connolly, who has led walking tours of the hipster neighborhood\u2019s urban art for nearly a decade, attributing trailblazing cultural similarities in New York and Paris for the grand amour.<\/p>\n

As tour guides across the city report an absence of usual visitors from Canada, Australia, Germany and other nations \u2014 possibly over political boycotts and tariff-related economic fears \u2014 French tourists are largely unbothered, Connolly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re obsessed with street art \u2014 hopefully, they keep coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Germans and Israelis \u2014 who also represent large swaths of Graff Tour patrons \u2014 have not booked nearly as much this year, and school groups from Canada and China have also dwindled, Connolly said.<\/p>\n

Antoine Jacquet, a 23-year-old Graff Tours customer from Dijon, France, said its been more difficult to clear immigration hurdles under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Connolly leads a group of tourists \u2014 two French families and one group from Kansas City, Missouri \u2014 on a tour through industrial Bushwick. Stephen Yang<\/p>\n

But he was able to make the overseas trip himself, and even predicted foreign tourism will \u201cprobably pick up with the new mayor Zohran [Mamdani],\u201d referring to the Democratic mayoral nominee, a socialist, because \u201chis policies are more based out of Europe than to America.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York City Tourism + Conventions, the city\u2019s tourism authority, recently said that some 2 million fewer visitors from other countries are expected to make the trip to the Big Apple in 2025, a loss of roughly $4 billion in foreign tourism dollars.<\/p>\n

August is typically one of the busiest months for tours, Connolly said, but during weeks this year when she would\u2019ve typically been working for seven days straight, she\u2019s spent entire days off without a booking.<\/p>\n

Antoine Jacquet, 23, of Dijon, France, expects that tourism to the US will tourism will \u201cprobably pick up with the new mayor Zohran [Mamdani].\u201d Stephen Yang<\/p>\n

\u201cTourism has big-down market effects: it affects hotels, it affects small businesses, it affects [the] local economy,\u201d said Graff Tours president Gabe Schoenberg.<\/p>\n

The impact has been felt in trendy Bushwick, from thrift shops to restaurants<\/a> that cater to Euro families in the hipster shopping district, added Schoenberg.<\/p>\n

As French tourism to the biz remains strong, Schoenberg still reports a roughly 10% drop in overall foreign visitors since last year \u2014 and is now trying too woo domestic tourists and locals with targeted social media ads.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did better this year with domestic tourism than years past,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While French tourism remains steady, Graff Tours has still seen a roughly 10% drop in overall foreign visitors since last year \u2014 and is now trying too woo domestic tourists and locals. Stephen Yang<\/p>\n

But \u201ca lot of domestic tourists don\u2019t see [graffiti] as art,\u201d Connolly said. \u201cThey\u2019re being told to fear New York and everything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schoenberg also attributed the reluctance of foreign tourists to visit New York City to \u201cbacklash\u201d over President Trump and his policies, as well rising transportation and food costs and fears over tariff-related price increases.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven for a New Yorker, prices are going up and prices are going up exponentially,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut locally, either exemptions for tourism or some type of incentive for tourism could also help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graffiti writer The Ghostface Mims teaches a workshop at Graff Tours. Stephen Yang<\/p>\n

The president of the tour company \u2014 which has a Los Angeles outpost as well \u2014 attributed diversity in its offerings as its key to staying afloat in uncertain times. <\/p>\n

Aside from industrial walking tours, Graff Tours\u2019 Bushwick site also offers spray painting classes and has hosted corporate events for the likes of Meta, L\u2019Or\u00e9al and even hosted an influencer-filled launch party for Samsung this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe class revenue is significant compared to the tour revenue,\u201d Schoenberg said. \u201cIf I was relying on tours in general, I don\u2019t think I would still be in business.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These tourists see the writing on the wall. French art lovers are flocking to industrial Brooklyn in droves…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":153663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,1121,34484,1033,171,50135,5248,7619,5331,5268,67,132,68,1154],"class_list":{"0":"post-153662","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-brooklyn","11":"tag-bushwick","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-graffiti","15":"tag-metro","16":"tag-new-york-city-life","17":"tag-tourism","18":"tag-tourists","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-us-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115045340609900795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}