Janae Pierre: From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Janae Pierre.

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Janae Pierre: The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by New York and New Jersey, and tourism leaders in the states are hoping for a big economic boom, but between threats from ICE and the US political climate, there are concerns that tourists may not come. On today's episode, we get into what's deterring visitors from booking flights and planning their stay for soccer's biggest tournament, but first, here's your news headlines.

New York City's Education Department is releasing new guidance on artificial intelligence. The department is taking what they're calling a traffic light approach. The new guidance says using AI for tasks like grading and discipline get a red light, meaning they're banned. Lesson planning and translation get a green light, and student research gets a yellow, meaning teachers need to use caution.

Officials say kids are already using AI, so guardrails are necessary, and they see potential for enhancing learning, but many parents are worried. Some parents have called for a total ban on AI in schools because of its impact on developing brains, data security, and the environment. The Education Department is requesting feedback ahead of more complete guidance in June.

Home health aides are pressing Mayor Zohran Mamdani to help them end 24-hour shifts. The workers rallied outside City Hall multiple times over the past week to call on the City Council to pass a bill capping home care shifts at 12 hours. Yunfang Chang is a retired home health aide. She spoke to WNYC through a translator.

Yunfang Chang: Even though I don't work anymore now, I can only get three to four hours of sleep every night now.

Janae Pierre: Chang said working 24-hour shifts for 12 years took a toll on her health. Some critics say reform needs to come from Albany since home care is largely funded through the state-run Medicaid program. A spokesperson for the mayor says he'll work with the state and City Council to protect workers.

New York lawmakers are considering whether to issue hundreds of millions of dollars to help developers finally build a platform and housing above the train tracks at Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards. Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon says the developers are requesting $350 million. She says she would support the funding if it means that more affordable housing gets built after two decades of broken promises.

Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon: We're throwing more money at this project, and what is the public getting?

Janae Pierre: The developer, Cirrus Real Estate Partners, declined to comment. A spokesperson for New York's Economic Development Authority says they're reviewing the request. The Empire State and the Garden State will host the 2026 World Cup, but some business and tourism leaders worry that visitors won't come. We discuss why after a quick break.

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Janae Pierre: Welcome back to NYC Now. The World Cup is the biggest soccer tournament in the world. It happens every four years, and this year, it's coming to the US, with New York and New Jersey playing a major role, including hosting the final at MetLife Stadium. Officials are expecting millions of visitors and billions of dollars in economic impact, but some tourism and business leaders, they're worried international fans may stay away. No, not because of soccer, but because of how the US is being perceived right now.

WNYC and Gothamist reporter Arun Venugopal has been reporting on this, and he joins me now. Hey, Arun.

Arun Venugopal: Hey, Janae.

Janae Pierre: Are you a big soccer fan at all?

Arun Venugopal: You know, I played soccer as a little kid. From an early age, it was something that mattered to me. I'm not a super fan in terms of following it these days, but when I start watching it, I get pretty seriously into it. I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of a [unintelligible 00:04:28]

Janae Pierre: Yes. It's an exciting moment when you're into it.

Arun Venugopal: Oh, totally. Yes. A little too much. [laughs]

Janae Pierre: Let's get into this reporting. What are tourism and business leaders actually worried about as New York and New Jersey prepare to host the World Cup this year?

Arun Venugopal: They worry about a lot. As you said, this is the world's biggest sporting event. The last one, I think it was like one and a half billion people tuned in, far exceeding anything that we are normally familiar with over here with our World Series and Super Bowls and whatnot. This is going to be bigger than any World Cup so far. It's in three countries. We've got Canada, the US, and Mexico. Right there, you're looking at the scale of this being unprecedented. Lots of people are expected here.

What people are worried about is that we're not going to be talking about football or soccer or whatever you call it, but we're going to be talking about something that has nothing to do with the game. They're going to be talking about things like the killing of Alex Preddy or Renee Good. These people who have become not just in the American consciousness, but in the global consciousness, of who we are as a country right now.

The people who are in charge of this, who are really trying to make this the most spectacular possible event, especially for our region, New York, New Jersey, they're worried that something like that is going to happen over here, and it's going to scare people off and distract people from the sport. One of the tourism industry officials that I spoke to, who expressed a lot of concern, is Vijay Dandapani. He's the president and CEO of the Hotel Association of New York. It represents the owners of like 300 hotels, 80,000 hotel rooms. Big group. This is what he had to say.

Vijay Dandapani: When it comes to just people running amok, the perception from foreigners in particular is, "Am I going to be caught into this dragnet?" Yes, from that standpoint, it's not helpful.

Janae Pierre: Basically, the political climate is really the thing that's overshadowing the World Cup.

Arun Venugopal: Exactly.

Janae Pierre: What evidence are they pointing to that suggests international visitors might already be rethinking trips to the US?

Arun Venugopal: Just setting aside the World Cup, last year, because of tariffs and other policies from the Trump administration, we saw tourism to New York go down from the year before. That's something that is happening across the country. It really hurts New York because we depend on it for billions of dollars in annual revenues and whatnot, a lot of businesses who do these travel groups around the city to, say, Central Park, Prospect Park, whatever it is, people whose livelihoods depend on this.

This year, what we're anticipating is a further drop in travel to New York because of all these fears, specifically from Europe. The numbers are really discouraging for people in the industry.

Janae Pierre: You reported specific flight booking data. Let's talk about that. How big is that drop that you're talking about? How unusual is it this far out?

Arun Venugopal: There's an aviation analytics company called Cirium, and they told me that flight bookings for the month of July, this coming summer, July 2026, from Europe into our two international airports, we're talking about JFK and Newark, that those bookings are down 21% from last year.

Janae Pierre: Yikes.

Arun Venugopal: That's a drop from what was already a sharp decline last year. That's pretty discouraging. When you look at the numbers overall for this country, that same company said the overall bookings from Europe to the US have fallen 14%, most sharply from places like Amsterdam, 23% decline from Amsterdam to the US, 21% from Paris, 19% from Athens, 26% from Barcelona, 36% from Frankfurt.

All these big global centers that we depend on for bringing people into the US, those numbers are really sharp at the same time that we're expecting a lot more people to be coming to the US and specifically to New York and New Jersey for the World Cup.

Janae Pierre: We talked a bit about the political climate playing a big role in all of this. How much of this concern is being driven by media coverage overseas? I'm thinking specifically about Europe.

Arun Venugopal: Yes, very much so. This is according to the people I've spoken to, some of whom are in Europe and are in the travel industry and are very much aware of how all these different images of protests and of killings in, say, Minneapolis or in other parts of the country, they're playing out. Sometimes, we live so much in our little American bubble. We think, "Oh, this is stuff that's happening here," not realizing that we are like the world's biggest exporter of images and TV and footage and stuff like that.

Janae Pierre: I can go even further and say we're stuck in a New York City bubble, right?

Arun Venugopal: Oh, totally. Exactly. We're not really thinking about how this stuff plays to the rest of the world, but it very much does. I spoke to one person. His name is Quentin Michelon. He's with the group Association for Professional Tourism. He's based in Paris. He said tension of European tourists at US Borders has received massive media coverage over in Europe. Then he said, also, the words of our president, President Trump, his words at Davos, he called Europeans weak, he called them stupid people, that it landed really hard over there, and that the cumulative effect, as he said, is a feeling of simply not being welcomed by the US.

Janae Pierre: Why do international tourists matter so much to the economic projections tied to the World Cup? We are estimating that billions of dollars will come in for New York and New Jersey. Why does this matter so much?

Arun Venugopal: It's very simple. The math is that compared to a domestic tourist, an international tourist spends four or five times as much money when they come here. They really go whole hog. When you commit to something, it might take a certain person with more money to burn, that's going to cross the oceans to come and enjoy themselves here.

All the businesses here in New York; bars, hotels, restaurants, that are really gearing up for this, that's what they're really worried about, is that not just tourists in general, but that people who are coming from far and wide across the world who are really excited about this, the kind of people who might go to the World Cup every four years or eight years or whatever it is, whenever they can make the trip, that they save up, and then they spend big when they come here. They're worried that they're just not going to come in the first place.

Janae Pierre: When we talk about these economic projections and the industries impacted, it's safe to say that it's the hospital industry, right?

Arun Venugopal: It is, yes. Exactly. It's really the most obvious venues that are worrying about the impact, but then again, if you're that little boutique that sits across from a hotel in, say, the Flatiron District, you're also going to be benefiting from this. Somebody who just wants a keepsake from their trip here and they decide to buy something beautiful to see there, all those businesses-- When we're talking about the millions of people who might be coming here, those are the kinds of overflow effects we see in businesses across the city, or not, depending on how this plays out.

Janae Pierre: What has the federal government said about its role during the World Cup, and what questions remain unanswered?

Arun Venugopal: We did reach out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. They didn't respond to our questions about what their plans are for immigration enforcement during the World Cup. Just to be clear, we're talking about seven games, specifically in New Jersey, but it's referred to as New York New Jersey for the purposes of the tournament. There's a whole regional impact.

They didn't respond to our questions, but the acting director of ICE, his name is Todd Lyons, he spoke to a congressional committee a few weeks ago. He told them that the agency would be a "key part" of the overall security apparatus for the World Cup. He also said, "We're dedicated to securing that operation, and we are dedicated to the security of all of our participants as well as visitors." That's Todd Lyons.

Janae Pierre: Arun, I've got to be honest. When it was first announced that the World Cup would be coming to New York and New Jersey, I wondered how that would look. What about tourists who just simply have a hard time getting the lay of the land and commuting from New York to New Jersey?

Arun Venugopal: Oh, exactly. You can live here, as I've lived here for many years, and still be like, "Wait, what's going on here? Why did they skip my stop? What's this construction doing for my commute? What's happening? Why is my train canceled?" All that stuff that we know is just par for the course of being a New Yorker. Now add to the fact that you are a foreign visitor, your English language skills may be only so-so, you hear something over the train intercom, you have no idea what was just said, they're adding all these different things, they're changing the paths to various things.

Add on top of that the fact that you might have ICE officers who are trying to provide security for outside the stadium or whatever. They may be roaming New York City. They may be roaming the PATH train, the MTA in general. There are a lot of layers here, clearly, and so tourism officials, New York City officials, immigrant rights activists, they're all worried that this is going to add up to a cocktail of confusion and potential chaos, and either keep people away or end up in some really kind of scary situations.

Janae Pierre: Yes, but I have to admit, this isn't an overnight thing. We have been seeing ICE for a year now, and we know the transportation system has been around. Has this not been considered prior to?

Arun Venugopal: I think that the thing is, if you had talked to some of these people six months ago, by which I mean tourism officials, city officials, they might have had a certain level of concern. I think that has really ratcheted up in the last couple of months because it's clearly just this moving target. There's a higher level of uncertainty now because of what we've seen in other parts of the country, because of the violence we've seen, the level of aggressive enforcement that's happening, and the ways in which people across the country are rising up against law enforcement.

If we see the same scenes in New York City that we've seen in, say, Minneapolis, then there's no telling about what that's going to mean for the World Cup, certainly if that happens prior to. If it happens anywhere close to the actual dates of the tournament, the month of games that play out here in the region, there's no way of telling what that's going to do in terms of just scenes of chaos and how that's going to meet with basic business.

Janae Pierre: We talked a lot about these concerns and how heightened they are right now. What has Mayor Mamdani's response been to all of this?

Arun Venugopal: We have asked his office multiple times exactly that question, what does he think of all this? They did not respond to us. He has appointed a World Cup czar who's just, I guess, new to this office.

Janae Pierre: Okay.

Arun Venugopal: What we do know is that there's other entities, like the New York City Tourism and Conventions. It's basically the city's main tourism booster. They've put out this PR campaign across the world, essentially meant to tell people, "Come to New York. We're a very inviting, welcoming, and diverse city." All these things, we might take for granted, but which have an added layer of meaning right now.

They've got this sort of mascot on their website known as Libby, short for Liberty, essentially, Statue of Liberty AI host. She's fluent in 60 languages and ready to make your visit unforgettable, all that kind of stuff. Yes, they've got this campaign going. They sent me these images of bus kiosks and shopping malls in all these different places: Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, where they're just appealing to people and saying, "Hey, it's a great town. Come and enjoy it." Knowing that, they're also trying to get over this hurdle.

Janae Pierre: Yes. What does it say about the political climate we're in right now that a place like New York City needs that type of messaging? Because if you think New York City, you think fun. I think fun town.

Arun Venugopal: Absolutely. Isn't that why we all came here, if we're not from here originally? Janae, I think one of the most interesting comments I heard from a business leader came from Jessica Lappin. She's the president of the Alliance for Downtown New York business group. We were talking about these controversies about what's going on right now, and she said, ultimately, there's really not much that the city can do to control how the federal administration operates or its enforcement during the games. She also said, if you followed World Cups, there's always been controversy.

Jessica Lappin: World Cup host countries are not without controversy. Look at Qatar, look at Russia. You know, it's not unusual to have a host country that's facing some controversy, quite frankly. Again, I would hope that people would feel comfortable in New York over almost anywhere on the planet because we are a welcoming, cosmopolitan, international city. I will say I think New York City tourism and travel is also working on making sure travelers know ahead of time what to expect. I think that will help remove some anxiety and also educate people.

Arun Venugopal: For us to think of ourselves as New York and the US as being in the same company as Russia-

Janae Pierre: Right. [unintelligible 00:18:46]

Arun Venugopal: -when it comes to human rights, I feel like that is a whole new reality that we're dealing with.

Janae Pierre: We know that Mayor Mamdani is the youngest mayor that we've had in a century, but he's also the first South Asian mayor. One could argue like that in itself would be inviting for international tourists to come here.

Arun Venugopal: I think you're right, the amount of attention that his identity has gotten. Again, sometimes, if you live in the New York City bubble, you think this is just like something that New Yorkers or perhaps other Americans deal with. I traveled last year in the months leading up to the election, and I was struck by-- You'd meet people-- I met people in Turkey who were like, "New York City. Oh, Zohran Mamdani." You're on a connecting flight in Heathrow, "New York City. Oh, Zohran Mamdani."

I was visiting my folks in Houston last year. Some of them were like, "What's this Zohran Mamdani all about?" Everybody around the world is paying attention to New York City in a new way because of--

Janae and Arun: Zohran Mamdani.

Arun Venugopal: I think that's true in many ways. Perhaps that is the wild card, perhaps a secret weapon as far as some people are concerned. Maybe they're not thinking about ICE enforcement. They're thinking about the city, which has this whole new-- it's had this image makeover, if you will. Yes, I guess it remains to be seen.

Janae Pierre: Yes. I'm just wondering, though, if concerns don't ease up, what does that mean for the region's expectations for the World Cup?

Arun Venugopal: The numbers are pretty big here. Here's the goal. They're looking at a $3.3 billion impact on the region. That's what they're hoping for. They're talking about 1.8 million visitors throughout the summer, 26,000 jobs generated because of the World Cup, just for this region. They're looking at just the amount of spending, they're talking about, on the regional economy, with matches and non-match attendees, $1.7 billion, hundreds of millions dollars in local and state tax revenues.

This is a big cash cow for this economy. There are a lot of people in the industry who still feel confident that we're going to hit those goals, and it's going to benefit a lot of people, and then there are people who are worried that it's not going to take a whole lot to derail that. There's an immigrant rights group, New York Immigration Coalition, they're also looking at this with some concern, and I think to some extent trying to exert some leverage here.

One immigrant rights leader is Murad Awawdeh. He's the president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition. He said it's not implausible that they would essentially call for an economic boycott of the World Cup if they don't think that ICE enforcement is easing up sufficiently.

Murad Awawdeh: If it comes to it, we may issue a travel alert to everyone who may be coming to New York and New Jersey to maybe not come to New York and New Jersey if the federal government continues to escalate their actions against our communities here.

Arun Venugopal: That is saying, if we don't get reassurances from ICE and the federal administration, the Trump administration, that they're going to ease up and allow for immigrants to move about freely, then we are going to send out a travel alert, a boycott, in essence, saying, "Don't come to the city because it's not going to be safe for you." Those are the kinds of things, also, that city officials and tourism officials are probably really wary of happening because this is a very complicated situation between people who want to make money, but also people who want to make sure that these communities are kept safe.

Janae Pierre: Yes, for sure. That's WNYC's Arun Venugopal. Thanks a lot, Arun.

Arun Venugopal: Thanks, Janae.

Janae Pierre: Thank you for listening to NYC Now. I'm Janae Pierre. See you soon.

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