New York Marriage Equality: $259M Impact on NYC

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$259 million dollars would buy a lot of wedding cake! Last week a report was issued by New York City's marketing and tourism bureau estimating the impact of the first year of marriage equality in New York State at $259 million. After New York State enacted marriage equality last summer, New York City ran a "NYC I Do" campaign to encourage same-sex couples to marry in the city and just one year later it appears to have paid off handsomely for the nation's largest city.

Time magazine reports:

Over 8,000 marriage licenses were registered to gay couples in the last year, meaning more than 10% of the 75,000 wedding licenses issued in the city were for same-sex marriages. Beyond basic government money, the new law brought in over 200,000 tourists to celebrate the marriages. That meant 235,000 hotel rooms booked at an average rate of $275, the mayor’s statement said. And we have no idea if that includes all the fabulous wedding gifts people bought.

I love this quote from New York City Council President Christine Quinn (who married her female partner on May 19, 2012 and is the heir apparent of Mayor Mike Bloomberg to become the next Mayor of New York City):

“What you can’t quantify is just the joy that has happened in New York City,” Quinn told reporters. “What better thing could government do than pass laws that make people equal, repeal laws that say some of us are unequal, and give families the opportunity to have that once-in-a-lifetime moment when a father can walk his daughter down the aisle.”

Indeed!