busy who is at new oak airport in new jersey. hello, gabriel. thanks for joining us. this is certainly a much needed boost the tourism industry. it really is, but this ultimately is a story about people and loved ones were uniting. and we're starting to see that now here at newark liberty airport, just a few minutes ago, a plane from the netherlands arrived here. and one of the 1st people off the plane was a man from the netherlands, got off and met his girlfriend. but he hasn't seen for many months, for the 1st time, they hugged a kiss. they were embracing for quite a long time. and it was one of many scenes that were starting to see here as this is the 1st day. now that foreigners, for most countries can come to the united states without any sort of restrictions other than needing to be fully. ready vaccinated and also have a negative cobra test. this is huge for the tourism industry throughout the united states. foreign tours bring in over $200000000000.00 a year to the economy of the united states. much of that, more than half actually comes here to new york city,

but 1st let's go to new jersey where gabriel alexander is live at new oak airport. hello gabriel. those 1st passenger flights have landed. this is certainly good news, the tourism industry. it certainly is. i mean, we're here at the international rivals in terminal, be at newark liberty international airport, one of the major international ports of entry, if you will, in the new york metropolitan area. it's quiet here right now, as you can probably tell, but we expect to right coming in within the next 45 minutes or so. one from amsterdam and another one from paris, paris. so we expect to see more people here within the next half hour. so bottom line though is this is a message from new york city to the rest of the world. welcome back. now, new york city tourism industry was decimated by the lack of foreign tourists over the last year and a half to 2 years. about $13000000.00 foreign tourists visit new york city every year. that's pre pandemic. they spend about 50 percent of all the tourist dollars in the city. come from foreign tourists. and about half of all the hotel rooms durin