New York City beat out Los Angeles for international visitors nearly two-to-one to take the top spot as America's destination for foreign tourists, the office of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Monday.

The Big Apple saw 8.6 million international tourists in 2009, twice as many as number-two Los Angeles, states Bloomberg's office. “Last year, while tourism declined significantly in cities across the country, we fared far better than most … ,” Bloomberg said.

In fact, while overall tourism in New York was down 3.9 percent (and projected to climb 3.2 percent this year), Gotham for the first time beat out little Orlando, home of Disney World, as the nation's tourism capital, the office states. Forty-five million tourists, worth $28 billion in spending, visited NYC in 2009.

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