New York reassures tourists after terror threat

New York is reassuring tourists that America's biggest city is safe as it prepares to welcome more than five million visitors for the busy holiday season after the Paris attacks.

The winter tourism season officially kicked off with Thursday's Thanksgiving Parade, where hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets to watch the three-hour event amid tight security.

After the Paris attacks on November 13, an Islamic State group propaganda video broadcast images of New York from Times Square. US authorities hit back that there was no credible threat against the city or anywhere else in the United States.

"We had some hotel cancellations from small groups," said Chris Heywood, senior vice president of global communications at NYC and Company -- the city's official marketing and tourism organization.

Despite what he calls a "sprinkling of a few cancellations," he is still encouraging people to visit the metropolis for the "magical holiday season" that lasts through December until New Year.

"The city is open," he told AFP. "It is business as usual."

Eighty-nine people were killed at the Bataclan concert hall in the Paris attacks, but the Broadway League says there has been no drop in attendance since the carnage in France.

The US State Department has issued a worldwide travel alert, warning Americans of a heightened terrorist threat in "multiple regions," which has added to the worry among tourist industry professionals.

"We have seen a fall in reservations," said the chief executive of Air France, Alexandre de Juniac, during a visit last week to New York, the prime target in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US. 

A US airline also said reservations from Europe were down, without wanting to give figures.

"I was in a plane 90 percent empty," Christine Priotto, mayor of Dieulefit, a town in southern France, told AFP after arriving this week in New York on a private visit. 

"It was a little strange."