PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — While tourism officials continue to calculate the economic impact of the FIFA World Cup and other big summer events in Philly, an early indicator shows it’s likely to be sizable.
The Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau has released revenue figures for Center City hotels from May 1 through Aug. 31. Chief marketing officer Joe Heller said hotels reported $335 million in revenue during that period.
“Overall revenue [was] up over 20%, year over year, and key categories like revenue per available room was up 22%,” he said.
“As we look at different years and compare different years, I think it will be one that sticks out over time.”
Ed Grose, president and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association, agreed it was a banner summer, though hotels had even higher hopes going in.
“While we didn’t sell quite as many rooms as we anticipated for the FIFA World Cup, we were very happy with how everything played out,” he said.
Still, Grose reported the hotels were very happy with the summer business and think the biggest dividend may have been the rave reviews the city received. “Philadelphia can not only handle the big events, we do them extremely well,” he said.
“When visitors came over here and posted on social media what a great time they were having while they were in Philadelphia, you can’t buy that type of exposure.”
