As the official tourism promotion agency for the City of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau is focused on positioning Philadelphia for success once international travel resumes, and the city can once again welcome overseas visitors.
To help facilitate recovery for the city’s hospitality and tourism businesses, the PHLCVB launched the PHL Health Pledge in partnership with the City of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the region’s renowned life sciences and medical community and institutions, along with the city’s hospitality business partners. Working together as one, Philadelphia’s hospitality community is displaying unstoppable ingenuity to ensure a safe return to travel, meetings, and events – key messages displayed in the PHLCVB’s new Unstoppable Philadelphia video.
PHL Health Pledge
The PHL Health Pledge is a long-term strategy that aligns the expertise and guidance from the PHLCVB’s Chief Health Advisor, Dr. David Nash, Dean Emeritus of the Jefferson College of Population Health and the PHL Health Advisors to establish best practices for reopening. The initiative demonstrates how Philadelphia is working together to introduce new clean and safe guidelines and leveraging our world-renowned life sciences industry by drawing upon their expertise to provide guidance and advice on how our tourism community can safely welcome visitors. The initiative is comprised of three key components:
- PHL Health Advisors, including:
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- Dr. Nash, serving as Chief Health Advisor, provides guidance directly to meeting planner customers and serve as a public spokesperson on behalf of the PHLCVB with regards to matters of public health and tourism.
- The 20-member PHL Health Advisors sub-committee of PHL Life Sciences, act as an internal support team, providing guidance to the PHLCVB and our hospitality partners on health and safety standards as well as information on local medical advancements in the fight against COVID-19
- Resources for Safely Reopening:
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- Aggregated list of plans from national partners like U.S. Travel Association as well as many local tourism partners for review by potential visitors
- PHL Hospitality Health Pledge signed by PHLCVB members and other local tourism-related businesses to show their commitment to new health and safety standards as they reopen for business. To date, over 100 PHLCVB members have signed the pledge, including hotels, restaurants, attractions and other businesses in the region. For a full list of members who have committed to a unified reopening of the city, visit PHL Hospitality Health Pledge.
- Continuing Education and Innovation:
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- On-going training and support for PHLCVB members to keep abreast of public health best practices to keep their hotels, attractions, and venues safe for visitors. Notably, the PHLCVB hosted a webinar for key customers with Dr. Nash, providing them with an opportunity to ask pertinent questions on how our industry should be adapting to changes brought on by the public health crisis.
Impact of Overseas, UK Visitation to Philadelphia
In 2019, there were over 76,000 hospitality-related jobs in Philadelphia County alone in 2019, making the industry one of Philadelphia’s largest and fastest growing employment sectors. Specifically, overseas visitation is critically important to Philadelphia’s overall leisure travel mix as overseas visitors tend to stay longer and spend more money while in market.
In 2018* the United Kingdom was Philadelphia’s #1 source market for overseas visitation, with over 112,000 visitors traveling to the city, and contributing over $91 million in direct spend. Prior to COVID-19, UK inbound-travel to Philadelphia grew by 3.4% from 2017 to 2018 with most UK visitors to Philadelphia arriving into PHL International. Visitation growth from the UK was supported by direct airlift to PHL from London, Manchester, Shannon and Edinburgh on American Airlines, and from Dublin on Aer Lingus.
For more insights on overseas visitation into Philadelphia and the economic impact on the leisure travel segment, view the PHLCVB’s Research and Resources.
