Philly region sets new tourism record

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The Pope isn’t even to town yet and Philadelphia is reporting record numbers of visitors.  

The annual report of the group Visit Philadelphia shows that the city welcomed a record 39.7 million visitors generating $10 billion in revenue for businesses.  

Meryl Levitz, head of Visit Philadelphia says while the convention business wasn’t soaring, leisure travel picked up the slack.

“We are not a one-horse town here, the idea for any city is to have three main drivers, convention and group commercial/business and leisure,” she said. “We are at the point now with all engines looking to fire well.”

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Levitz says a special visit from Pope Francis will help boost tourism this year.

“He’s bringing with him 8,000 media plus probably two million visitors,” she said.

Of course to follow up, Philadelphia hosts the Democratic National Convention in 2016.

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