Hell's Kitchen sees more passports per square block than almost any other neighborhood in the city, and the numbers back it up. In 2024, New York City welcomed roughly 64.5 million visitors, with international travelers accounting for 12.9 million of that total.
The recovery since the pandemic low has been steady rather than sudden. International arrivals dropped to 2.4 million in 2020, climbed to 2.7 million in 2021, jumped to 9.4 million in 2022, reached 11.6 million in 2023, and closed out 2024 at 12.9 million — just shy of the 2019 peak. The city is, by most measures, one stamp away from a full comeback.
So who's actually filling the sidewalks around Times Square and 9th Avenue? Five countries lead the pack.
The United Kingdom topped the list in 2024 with roughly 1.06 million visitors, followed by Canada at 983,000, France at 788,000, Italy at 706,000, and Brazil at 686,000. China, Germany, Mexico, and Australia rounded out the rest of the top nine, each contributing somewhere between 480,000 and 610,000 travelers.
What makes this worth a Friday mention: Hell's Kitchen sits in the flight path of nearly all of it. Times Square, Broadway, and the theater district pull a huge share of these international visitors directly through the neighborhood — which means a restaurant blending Korean and Mediterranean flavors isn't just feeding locals, it's introducing a genuinely global crowd to a cuisine pairing most of them have never seen on one menu.
For fun, here's how to say hello to this week's top nine nationalities, in case any of them walk through the door:
| Country | Language | Hello |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | English | Hello |
| Canada | English / French | Hi / Bonjour |
| France | French | Bonjour |
| Italy | Italian | Ciao |
| Brazil | Portuguese | Olá |
| China | Mandarin | Nǐ hǎo (你好) |
| Germany | German | Hallo |
| Mexico | Spanish | Hola |
| Australia | English | G'day |
With the 2026 World Cup bringing fresh waves of travelers from co-host countries and beyond, that international foot traffic on 9th Avenue is only set to grow — so this list might come in handy more often than expected.
Source: New York City Tourism + Conventions; Office of the New York State Comptroller; U.S. Department of Commerce
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