Philadelphia and the Countryside - Press Room

Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) today launched its 2010 $1.7 million tourism marketing campaign with 25 new With Love, Philadelphia XOXO™ ads, bringing the total to 115 personalized love letters addressed to travelers with all sorts of interests. Along with a winter TV commercial, the new ads will begin appearing today in publications such as People, Entertainment Weekly and Real Simple.

“For the next push of With Love, Philadelphia XOXO™, we’re running ads on television and in popular entertainment and lifestyle magazines to keep Philadelphia top of mind for travelers during this need period for hotels,” said Meryl Levitz,

Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) today launched visitphilly.com, the new, renamed tourism Web site that replaces the popular gophila.com—a site that has received 40 million visits, ranked #1 on Google for the search term “Philadelphia” and built authority that equates to nearly 30,000 links to it. The dramatically enhanced Web site strengthens GPTMC’s ability to market Philadelphia and The Countryside® as a premier visitor destination to an ever-growing online audience who accesses travel information from their home computers, their laptops and their phones.

On visitphilly.com, travelers can book hotels, flights, rental cars and attraction tickets for Philadelphia

Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) today launched visitphilly.com, the new, renamed tourism Web site that replaces the region’s popular and official tourism Web site, gophila.com.

WHY: GPTMC embarked on the new Web site project in order to achieve a dramatically enhanced Web site that strengthens GPTMC’s ability to market Philadelphia as a premier visitor destination to an ever-growing online audience.

NAME CHANGE: The new name, visitphilly.com, improves the marketability of the site by using words that are easy to remember and that say what we want users to do—visit Philly.

In addition, as consumer behavior leans more

In a time when people are questioning the purchase of everything from coffee to cars, Philadelphia and The Countryside® is worth the trip, according to 30 million visitors. On January 8, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) released its Tourism Industry Profile 2010: Worth the Trip, an industry snapshot that examines the thousands of reasons why people keep coming to the Philadelphia region—in other words, why it’s “worth the trip,” even in a tough economy. The 15-page publication takes readers through 13 years of tourism in Greater Philadelphia, which started as a day-trip city and grew to the premier

As the second decade of the new millennium gets underway, some of Philadelphia’s most venerated cultural and historical institutions are gearing up to spend the current decade newly energized and outfitted for a tech-savvy, sophisticated new generation of visitors. Throughout Historic Philadelphia, Center City and Philadelphia’s countryside, tourist attractions are launching revolutionized technological experiences, adding thousands of square feet to their display areas, moving their collections both around the block and miles away and showcasing innovative and blockbuster exhibitions. What’s more, two new hotels in Center City—Le Méridien Philadelphia and Hotel Palomar Philadelphia—give visitors more options as they