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Tourists flocked to the Chesapeake region in 2014, with 20.2 million people visiting Washington, D.C.and even stronger numbers for Baltimore. “We welcomed 24.5 million domestic visitors who generated $5.2 billion in visitor spending,” said Tom Noonan, president and CEO, Visit Baltimore. Hospitality and tourism-supported employment also grew 2 percent to reach 82,000 jobs.”
Tourists flocked to the Chesapeake region in 2014, with 20.2 million people visiting Washington, D.C.and even stronger numbers for Baltimore. “We welcomed 24.5 million domestic visitors who generated $5.2 billion in visitor spending,” said Tom Noonan, president and CEO, Visit Baltimore. Hospitality and tourism-supported employment also grew 2 percent to reach 82,000 jobs.”
Baltimore is a great and underrated city imo. Obviously not on the level of some other NE corridor cities but a very clear #5. Like Philly, also has potential for significant gains as time moves forward.
I was born in Philly, but raised in the western Philly suburbs. However, I have lived in other parts of the country as well, so may have a different perspective than others. Philly has long had a bit of an inferiority complex being only 90 miles from NYC. It is a much more parochial city than NYC, but that has been changing vastly in the past 20 or so years. The value for what you get on Philly from a cost/benefit perspective is pretty good. You have access to big city benefits, and also the Jersey Shore, Pocono hills, and can be legitimately in the country in 45 minutes from downtown.
People are discovering the lower costs of Philly, especially when compared to NY, and NJ. There are still very bad sections of the city, but many have been gentrified, and are improving. It has all the problems of any big city, but has a lot of great benefits, also, including the history, and a great restaurant/food culture. If you like sports, it has all four sports teams, plus good college basketball.
I personally don't think that Philly is nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. It has a "lived in" look and feel which I personally find to be a quality of a city.
I've heard (from people who have attended football games there), that Philadelphia fans are pretty brutal toward opposing fans. Not experienced it myself, but have heard it from several who have.
I agree. That's why Baltimore has pulled in even more people every year after.
The point that you're calling "moot" is a point that not only you brought up, but you were also proven wrong in the process.
If going by population (City, Metro, your choice) Baltimore is actually doing better than Philly in that regard.
No, I didn't bring up the point; I never introduced tourism into the discussion. Furthermore each tourism bureau calculates these things differently and it's never an apples-to-apples comparison. But the fact of the matter is that when it comes to overall clout, Baltimore is below the Big Four of the East Coast cities.
Furthermore, it seems that you'd want to compare Baltimore with the likes of Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, etc--you know, its fellow Southern cities.
From link:
Welcome to the odd world of visitor numbers. Every big city in the country has a marketing arm tabulating and promoting its annual visitors and for Philadelphia, it’s Visit Philly. The group’s latest estimate touted “Greater Philadelphia” as having seen a record 41 million domestic visitors in 2015.
*** 42- million for 2016 stats.***
So is 41 million good? And how did Visit Philly get that number? Billy Penn decided to zoom in.
Not quite 41 million for Philly city-proper.
First thing to know: That 41 million people is for “Greater Philadelphia.” That area, according to Visit Philly, consists of Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties. The number for Philadelphia proper in 2015 was 25.9 million.
*** I read 2016 was 29-million for the city proper. ***
What the Philly link says on how Philly counts visitors different then other cities including DC:
- Forty-one million would be an amazing feat, placing Philadelphia within striking distance of New York for top visitor location on the East Coast. But that’s not a fair comparison to make, because many other cities gauge only visitors who visit the respective city.
- Take New York City for example. NYC & Company counts overnight visitors and day-trippers, too, using the same 50-mile or farther metric for daytime guests, but keeps its data to the five boroughs. In 2015, its total for domestic visitors was 46 million.
- Unlike Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. doesn’t count day-trippers in its methodology. It only counts overnight visitors. And in 2015 DC saw 19.3 million domestic visitors. That would put the city a few million behind Philadelphia but likely well ahead of it if we considered only the city of Philadelphia’s overnight guests.
- Chicago beats out Philadelphia, as well as New York and DC (!), with 51 million domestic visitors in 2015, according to Choose Chicago . And so does Seattle. Using the same formulas as Philly, it had 35 million visitors in 2015.
Who does Philly beat? Taking into account other big cities known for tourism, we’re ahead of San Francisco (24.6 million), Miami and its nearby beachy cities (15 million) and New Orleans (9.8 million).
As for the title of the thread -- does Philly have the worst perception problem -- the answer is no. That would be Baltimore. Even on CD, where people are supposed to be more clued in about cities, I see folks routinely put Baltimore in line with Detroit etc. In fact Baltimore is closer to Philly than to the depressed rust belt cities that it's often compared to. Yes, it has vast areas of blight and crime (as does Philly), but its urban core, much like Philly's, is a jewel.
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