New York mayor Bill de Blasio has announced the appointment of Fred Dixon as chief executive of NYC & Company, New York City’s official marketing, tourism and partnership organisation.

Dixon will succeed George Fertitta who stepped down earlier this year.

With more than 23 years of experience in the travel industry, Dixon has the overall responsibility for developing and implementing New York City’s tourism and convention development strategy internationally as well as in domestic leisure and business markets.

At NYC & Company Dixon has built a professional sales and marketing team that is at the core of the organisation’s strategy to increase visitation and economic impact across the City.

Joining NYC & Company in 2005 Dixon leads the aggressive and successful expansion of the City’s international marketing efforts.

With a strategic focus on growing visitation and visitor spending, NYC & Company focused on emerging global markets rapidly expanding the City’s presence from six traditionally strong origin markets to 18 offices covering 25 countries in just over two years.

With a network of sales, marketing and press professionals in diverse feeder markets from the UK to Australia, China to Mexico and India to Brazil, New York City remains at the forefront of inbound international tourism to the US.

The period from 2005 to 2013 has seen a 68 per cent increase in international visitation from 6.8 million to over 11.4 million a year, more than 1.5 times faster than the US as a whole.

Economic activity as a result of international visitor spending is rising faster than the economy overall and reached $18 billion in 2013, a 68 per cent increase since 2005.

The total economic contribution of the industry is now over $55 billion annually, supporting over 370,000 jobs and contributing over $3.5 billion to local taxes.