PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Tourists still are not flocking to the Philadelphia region like they did before the pandemic lockdowns, but the city’s tourism sector last year did manage to make some improvements over the year before.
In 2023, Philadelphia and its five surrounding counties welcomed just under 43 million visitors, and tourists spent just over $7.5 billion, leading to an estimated economic impact of $12.4 billion. That’s according to a new outlook for 2024 put out by Visit Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“Here in Philadelphia, we should be proud of the city that we have,” said Angela Val, president and CEO of Visit Philadelphia.
The numbers are slight increases in tourism for the region compared to 2022, but still not at their pre-pandemic levels, which were at a record high for visitors in the region.
"We have definitely made year-to-year progress, so everything is headed in the right direction, although there is definitely room to grow," Val said.
The depletion of some of the savings people were able to grow during the pandemic when travel was restricted is one headwind facing further tourism growth in the city, she added. “So, although demand for travel is still really great, we do expect it to slow down a bit, but not decrease.”
The hotel sector, especially, in 2023, still lagged behind pre-pandemic figures in occupancy rate, demand for rooms and revenue.
“I think one of the things that is impacting the slow recovery in occupancy is that we grew the number of rooms here in Philadelphia County, specifically in the downtown area, about 2,000 additional rooms out of the pandemic."
Leaders still have an optimistic outlook for 2024, however, two years before the 2026 FIFA World Cup shines an international spotlight on the city and draws throngs of soccer fans from around the world.
“We have a lot of work to get prepared for 2026, but I anticipate that we would’ve reached our 2019 benchmarks by the first quarter of ’25 and definitely 2026,” Val said.