The visitors love us even more

As it enters its 15th year of promoting Philadelphia and its environs as a tourist destination, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation deserves kudos not only for getting more people to visit the region and stay awhile but for helping boost Greater Philadelphia's tourism and hospitality industry.

The agency released its 2011 annual report to the public on May 11, with figures for 2010.Those figures show that tourism has not only held its own but continued to grow as an economic engine for the region even in a weak economy. The total number of visitors to the region increased 4%, from 36 million in 2009 to 37.4 million in 2010. Overnight visitors rose even more, climbing 10% from 13.1 million to 14.4 million. More than 80% of these visitors, moreover, came here for leisure purposes.

More to the point, these visitors brought their money with them. The GPTMC calculates that visitor spending in the region had an economic impact of $24 million a day, or $8.7 billion for the year.

All that money supports a lot of jobs in the region, and not just in the hospitality industry. According to the GPTMC, nearly 85,000 jobs in Greater Philadelphia depend either directly or indirectly on visitors to the area. That figure (actual number: 84,807 in 2010) also rose from last year, by 1.4%. Among the indirect beneficiaries of visitor spending are the education and health care sector, finance, insurance and real estate, and personal services, which together accounted for 7,361 jobs indirectly attributable to tourism.

What all this means is that the GPTMC's marketing efforts have paid off big time for the Philadelphia region. (That success also sends another message: When things get tough, keep up the marketing effort.) We should all thank every visitor we meet for coming to Philly. After all, our jobs may well depend on that visitor - and our taxes would be even higher were that visitor not here.

By Sandy Smith

Sandy Smith is a veteran freelance writer, editor and public relations professional who lives in Philadelphia. Besides blogging for PhillyJobs.com, he has written for numerous publications and websites, would be happy to do your resume, and is himself actively seeking career opportunities on Beyond.com. Check out his LinkedIn profile and read his other posts on PhillyJobsBlog.com.