Taylor Swift’s current fling with the Big Apple just got serious and the whole world is going to know about it.
The city’s tourism wing announced Monday that the 24-year-old pop star will be the face and voice of a global campaign to attract visitors to the city as its “global welcome ambassador.”
Swift, who released Monday her latest album “1989,” featuring the song “Welcome to New York,” said she was excited to show-off her new home.
“I just go around going like, ‘Everybody, New York is amazing.’ So I think they just picked up on that and they gave me, like, a title,” she said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Some New Yorkers, however, say that Swift’s role as a city spokeswoman isn’t genuine since the Pennsylvania born star only moved to a TriBeCa penthouse, which she bought for a reported $19.9 million, in the spring.
Swift joins the huge list of New York celebrities who helped NYC & Company over the years, such as Whoopi Goldberg and Robert De Niro, but her campaign will be geared to a younger crowd. It will feature videos starring Swift that will run online and in taxis and outdoor advertisements in places in Boston, Spain and Italy.
Swift, who also announced that she will be performing in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, talks about some of her favorite things about the city in the clips, such as its diversity, culture and food.
“It’s impossible not to fall in love or be affected by New York City,” she says in one video.
In another video, the singer jokingly teaches viewers “important New York vocabulary words,” like bodega, Houston Street and stoop.
Fred Dixon, the president of NYC & Company, said the partnership with Swift began earlier this year when he met with her management team.
They mentioned that she was writing a song about her experience as a newcomer to the city and when the Dixon heard the song months later, he said he was amazed with how “Welcome to New York” resonated with the city’s message.
“We thought it was a perfect anthem,” he said.
When Dixon offered Swiftthe ambassador title, which is not a paid gig, her team jumped on it immediately and helped plan the campaign, he said.
Jill Lazar, 30, who recently moved to Astoria from south Florida, said she liked that Swift was sharing her personal experience as a New Yorker.
“Most people come here with dreams of making it and she’s trying to make it besides she’s doing it in a very humbling way, not like other celebrities,” she said.
Ed Arteche, 30, who was visiting New York yesterday from San Francisco, however, said he didn’t think a country singer who spent a lot of time in the South exemplifies New York.
“I just don’t think she’ll make an ideal ambassador for tourism seeing as New York is so diverse,” he said.
Dixon acknowledged that some of Swift’s local critics wouldn’t be happy with her representing the city, but reminded that she represents every new New Yorker who comes in with a strong sense of optimism.
It’s a quality that he said is part of the estimated 55.8 million people who will come to check out the Big Apple by the end of the year.
“New York City is a big place, but it’s important to make a place that’s bit but also personal. Taylor really exemplifies it in her song and this campaign,” he said.
(With Jane Gayduk)
