Philadelphia Jobs in Tourism Lose Ground

According to a recent U.S tourism study, Philadelphia has fallen in popularity in the last year. Before the most recent statistics were in, the City of Brotherly love was considered the 18th most popular spot for travelers to visit. Over the last 12 months, the city has fallen one spot to 19th on the list. If a decline continues, the number of available Philadelphia jobs in the tourism industry may be effected.

The study was conducted by Global Insight, which is a Massachusetts-based economic and financial analysis firm. Every year this company ranks the top 100 U.S Tourism City Destinations to get a better idea about the industry and which locations are pulling in a greater profit. The spending of both domestic and foreign tourists are used to decide the status of each city.

Other factors that play a part include the level of tourism job dependency and the number of visitors and area needs to sustain each job in this industry. For each tourism job in Philadelphia the city has to have 210 visitors. Miami, which came in as ninth most popular area in the nation, only needs 65 tourist to create and sustain an a new job.

New York is now officially the most popular city to visit in the country, surpassing both Orlando and Las Vegas.

According to a Global Insight representative, the major contribution to tourism spending level are directly related with a significant influx of foreign visitations. This is especially true for the cities that made it into the top five most popular travel locations in America.

With the price of travel increasing due to rising gas prices, there has been a significant increase in Americans vacationing in other cities instead of leaving the country. The cities that made the list of the top 20 in the nation all experienced an increase in tourism spending of 9 percent or greater. The top three location, New York, Orland and Las Vegas, however, saw an increase of 12 percent with in the last 12 months.

The news that Philadelphia has fallen in popularity came out only a few weeks after Governor Edward G. Rendell signed legislation to allow the city to leverage local resources and expand tourism marketing efforts. Rendell has hopes on increasing the number of visitors to the area in hopes of helping the economy and jobs.

“State and city governments are united with Philadelphia hoteliers with the vision and the goal of having more people visit the great city and explore the greater region,” said Gov. Rendell in a recent press release. “It is important to continue to expand the tourism and convention economy as it accounts for 88,000 jobs in the Philadelphia region.”