Philadelphia has been one of the country's top travel and tourism destinations for decades. Now, thanks to the efforts of the
Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau (PHLCVB), which has been marketing the city's bona fides for more than a decade, we've got the credentialed travel statistics to back up our bragging rights.
Philadelphia was recently named the 13th most visited U.S. city by international visitors by the U.S. Department of Commerce's
Office of Travel & Tourism Industries (OTTI), which ranks oversees travel statistics annually. According to Danielle Cohn of the PHLCVB, that ranking represents a 13 percent increase over the previous year (when Philadelphia came in 14th).
Those rankings have been tracked locally by the Convention & Visitors Bureau ever since 2002, says Cohn, when Philadelphia was only the country's 21st most visited city among international visitors. It was roughly eight years later, in 2008, when those numbers first began showing a significant increase.
"The momentum we continue to see is really based on new and innovative sales and marketing initiatives that our team has in place," explains Cohn.
One of those initiatives is a new international marketing campaign, "
PHL: Here For The Making," which emphasizes the city's business and educational opportunities. And along with reps located in target markets throughout Western Europe, the CVB has lately been paying especially close attention to the emerging
BRIC markets.
"I think a lot of times people forget that we're traveling around the world promoting Philadelphia because they don't see it here in their backyard," says Cohn. "But it's a very important part of the city's future."
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Danielle Cohn, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau