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Don’t fuhgedaboudit

The Brooklyn Paper

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Although many mocked it as a pointless junket, Borough President Markowitz’s fact-finding tour of England revealed the truth about how the world tourism industry views our beloved borough — and how much more work he and others need to do to put Brooklyn on the world’s tour map.

“I think of Brooklyn as the center of the world, but frankly, the travel agents I met didn’t,” Markowitz told The Brooklyn Papers upon his return.

“All they knew about Brooklyn was that it is somewhere in New York, it has the Brooklyn Bridge and that that Beckham guy has a daughter named Brooklyn.”

And it didn’t take long for the borough’s Booster in Chief to see why. While attending the World Travel Market trade show, Markowitz said he was stunned by New York’s “unimaginative” pitch. Trinidad, he said, had “an unbelievable booth with a full band.” California served up wine. Las Vegas had showgirls. Even Lebanon and Ethiopia had big screen TVs showing attractive tourism sites.

What did New York have?

“Gonish!” Markowitz said, using the Yiddish word for “nothing.”

“I’m not blaming anyone,” Markowitz made clear. “But this market is so competitive that you have to be very aggressive.”

We couldn’t agree more. Tourism has been one of New York’s growth industries — yet too little of it trickles to Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn Papers has long complained of the Manhattan-centric approach of NYC & Co., the city’s official tourism bureau — and Markowitz’s experience overseas shows that tour packagers believe New York City stops in Manhattan.

The good news: Markowitz said NYC & Co.’s new leader George Fertitta agreed with the borough president on the need to beef up New York’s sales pitch — and tell the world about non-Manhattan offerings.

Here’s hoping he delivers.

Perhaps he should hire Markowitz for more road-trips. As we well know, every conversation with the Beep revolves around the greatness of Brooklyn.

Even when we asked him how the fish and chips were in foggy London, he said, “They were good, but the Chip Shop is better, right here in Brooklyn.”

Sounds like the start of a tourism campaign.

©2006 The Brooklyn Paper

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