New York City’s hotel occupancy rate is climbing, and jobs are being added to the city’s service and retail sectors, according to new data, even as concerns about the local economy are reaching a fever pitch.

In May the average cost of a hotel room in New York climbed to $350 a night from $300 in May 2007, according to figures released yesterday by the official marketing and tourism organization for New York City, NYC & Company.

A total of 2.05 million hotel room nights were sold in May, a slight increase from the 2 million sold in May of last year. The occupancy rate climbed to 90%, a 1% increase from the same period last year.

“All indicators are that the numbers are strong. We are not seeing a decrease in the number of visitors, and we may even see modest gains,” a spokeswoman for NYC & Company, Tiffany Townsend, said yesterday.

But there are also signs that the torrid pace of visitors passing through New York City may be slowing as the dollar appreciates against other foreign currencies.

NYC & Company previously projected that 12.5 million visitors would visit New York City between June and August, an increase of 500,000 visitors over the same period last year.

That projection would not match the year-to-year increase of 1 million visitors who came to New York City in the first three months of 2008.

Broadway attendance, another key barometer of tourism in the city, was down in May of this year, dropping to 1.18 million tickets sold from 1.24 million in May 2007.

In June, the city’s unemployment rate, which had been lower than the nation’s, rose to 5.4%, about equal with the national rate of 5.5%. Still, the food service and drinking and retail sectors appear to have bucked that trend, adding 6,000 jobs and 3,000 jobs, respectively, in May versus the same period last year.