Tourism : In The News

The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) is making a pitch to LGBT tourists using a saucy new commercial.

The new video builds on the city’s memorable 2003 “Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay” campaign by showing the flamboyant female impersonator Miss Richfield 1981 touring some of Philadelphia’s best-known sites, including Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Dressed in a red-and-white striped skirt and a tight blue bodice, Miss Richfield poses with Betsy Ross — the Betsy Ross House is in the city — and runs the “Rocky Steps” at the art museum but is distracted by the muscular torsos of a quartet of young male joggers on the banks of the Schuylkill.

Original source: The New York Times
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Peter Stretch, a renowned and visionary 18th century clockmaker, is the subject of a new book by Frank L. Hohmann III.

Peter and Margery became role models for Philadelphians. They gave advice to unmarried Quakers about maintaining "moderation or modesty" in budding love affairs. The couple donated money to widows, orphans and victims of house fires and kidnappings by Indians. For elite customers, Peter Stretch built brass clocks with multiple dials that tracked the time and moon phases. The dials were surrounded by metal cherubs and crowns. The carved wooden clock cases mostly came from the Philadelphia cabinetmaker John Head, a fellow English Quaker émigré. (Head’s account books, rediscovered in a Philadelphia archive in 1999, have page after page listing transactions with Stretch.)

The clockmaker’s workshop was so renowned that its address, at the intersection of Second and Chestnut Streets, was known as Stretch’s Corner. His buyers flaunted the clocks in their finest parlors, and the survival rate is high. A few of the antiques still belong to his clients’ descendants, and two-thirds of perhaps 200 made in Stretch’s career have been identified, sometimes with handwritten notes attached describing their travels over the centuries.

Original source: The New York Times
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Last weekend's U.S. Open brought attention to one of Philadelphia's gems -- Merion Golf Club. It was a risk for the USGA that paid off.

Few would disagree that the star of the 2013 United States Open was Merion Golf Club. Merion, a 101-year-old course outside Philadelphia, disproved claims that it was not long enough or fierce enough to challenge today’s professionals.

Original source: The New York Times
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Eastern State Penitentiary offers a look at traditional prison foods. Delish!

This weekend, the defunct Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia will serve visitors sample inmate meals from the 1830s, 1940s and today: broiled salted beef with “Indian mush”; hamburger with brown gravy and beets; and Nutraloaf — an unappetizing concoction currently served as punishment in prisons across the country.

Event organizers say the not-so-haute cuisine is a way to stimulate both the taste buds and the mind. The meals reflect the changing nature of food service at penal institutions and, in some ways, attitudes toward inmates, said Sean Kelley, the prison’s director of public programming.

Original source: The Associated Press
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Inspired by the recent news that the rowhome featured in Rocky II is for sale, Yahoo! put together a list of five local properties made famous in film. My personal favorite is the Graduate Hospital house featured in The Sixth Sense.

In the 1999 movie "The Sixth Sense," Haley Joel Osment's character, Cole Sear, saw dead people in his house on the of 2300 block of St. Albans Place in Philadelphia. But this haunted movie house and its surroundings also shined a new light on the City of Brotherly Love. The movie's colorful shots of Logan Circle, Rittenhouse Row, and the St. Albans Place garden block made filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan a hometown hero, who, according to Philly.com, later donated $1.5 million to improve the South Philly area that played such a big role in "The Sixth Sense." Shyamalan recounted his first sight of the red brick block, saying, "It could have been anywhere … It looked like it had been built by immigrant hands. For some reason, I was meant to be here, and we were meant to do this."

The New York Times takes a look at museums dedicated to hometown heros. Some of these folks are now relatively obscure, including South Philly crooner Mario Lanza.

Though millions saw his movies and bought his records (“Be My Love,” “Arrivederci Roma”) in the 1940s and 1950s, Lanza, who died in 1959 at age 38, is virtually unknown to the general public today. On a good day, perhaps 10 or 15 people visit to look at costumes, publicity posters, old photos and other items while his songs play in the background.

The Lanza Institute is one of countless small shrines in the hometowns or the adopted towns of native sons and daughters who went away to become famous, though some of the stars are barely remembered today. These museums are mostly special for their focus and usually reflect an undying care for their subjects by true keepers of the faith.

Original source: The New York Times
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PHL has become an attractive departure point for New Yorkers, drawn by the low prices and the presence of Southwest Airlines.

Airfares have been dropping faster in Philadelphia than in any other big city, fueling a boom in traffic at the congested airport there. Despite its reputation for delays and baggage difficulties, Philadelphia International is now attracting more passengers for domestic flights than any of New York's three major airports - La Guardia, Kennedy International or Newark Liberty International.

Transportation officials say they do not know how many of those travelers are being lured away by lower fares, but they concede that New Yorkers are not immune to what is known in the travel industry as the Southwest effect. When Southwest Airlines, the king of the low-fare carriers, arrives in a new city, it drives down airfares and adds traffic.

Original source: The New York Times
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A travel writer from the Telegraph (UK) came to Philadelphia for the museums and the history, and fell instead for its walkable, understated charm.

Dizzy with images, I felt ready for more trivial pursuits. Like shopping, along elegant Walnut Street and Rittenhouse Row; exploring the independent boutiques and galleries of 3rd Street in the Old Town; trawling the renowned vintage shops of Fabric Row and shops of Antiques Row; and sampling Amish farm produce at Reading Terminal Market.

Compact and human in scale, friendly in atmosphere, Philadelphia is a city made for walkers, divided into contrasting neighbourhoods and dissected by the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, whose banks sport the boat houses of the city's six proud universities, prettily illuminated at night (a scene popularised by the paintings of Thomas Eakins).

Original Source: Telegraph (UK)
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The Washington Post's Adrian Higgins visited the Flower Show, PHS's big annual event, and came away impressed. (Check out Flying Kite's pics from the shindig here.)

Historically, big-city flower shows are like big cities themselves: They either change or decline but cannot stay the same. By all appearances, the Philadelphia show is in the midst of healthy change: Attendance climbed from 235,000 in 2010 to 270,000 last year and is on track to exceed 300,000 this year. The number of competitive entries in a feature called the horticultural court — the horticourt — is about 11,000, and the entrants’ enthusiasm has been rewarded with a new $1 million setting for the competitions that includes a fabric roof and new show benches and display backdrops.

Original source: The Washington Post
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The City of Brotherly Love (and pie!) claimed the number four spot on Travel & Leisure's list of "America's Best Cities for Pizza." Personally, I think Santucci's and Gennaro's Tomato Pie also deserved a mention.

Pizza may not have been part of the founding fathers’ diet, but it is the voters’ favorite food in present-day Philly, which ranked in the top 5 for its great museumsand cultural attractions. History meets pie at Pizza Brain, the “pizza museum” in Fishtown that serves thin-crust pies and houses more than 500 pizza-related artifacts. Meanwhile, at purist favorite Nomad Pizza, they slice your pie at the table, to prevent sogginess, and show a movie every Sunday night.

Original source: Travel & Leisure
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The United States Olympic Committee has sent letters to the mayors of 35 American cities hoping to gauge their interest in hosting the 2024 games. Philadelphia was included in the USOC's wide net.

The U.S.O.C. says it has not decided whether to pursue a bid in 2024, but it has begun the decision-making process in unusual fashion. The selection pool of potential United States bid cities is usually limited to the very largest, for logistical reasons as well as the need to compete with major international cities to win the Games. The last two American bid cities, New York (2012) and Chicago (2016), each spent more than $10 million, only to be eliminated early in the voting by the International Olympic Committee.

Original Source: The New York Times
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With US Airways merging with (and becoming) American Airlines, Philadelphia International Airport will have new largest carrier. Chances are, bags will still be lost -- but will fares be higher?

During the past five years, the airline industry has seen the combinations of Delta with Northwest, United with Continental and Southwest Airlines Co. with AirTran. Further consolidation is likely to raise airfares. The price of a domestic round-trip flight has climbed more than 11 percent since 2009, when adjusted for inflation, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The merger will give a combined American and US Airways Group Inc. the ability to increase fares. United, Delta and Southwest would be likely to follow. Although it could also pave the way for further expansion by discount airlines such as Spirit Airlines Inc. and Allegiant Travel Co.

Original source: NBC News
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The Washington Post profiles a wave of transplant chefs invigorating Philadelphia's excellent dining scene.

Wooed by affordable real estate, the city’s neighborhoody vibe and strong ties among fellow chefs, these new boldface names include Josh Lawler, formerly of New York’s acclaimed Blue Hill at Stone Barns, who has gone the BYO route at the Farm and Fisherman in Washington Square West. Greg Vernick, an alumnus of the Jean-Georges Vongerichten empire, has opened the splashier Vernick Food & Drink in Rittenhouse Square.

Hotel development has bounced back in Philadelphia, with four new projects on the docket. The latest addition is Hotel Indigo, planned for the Bailey Building at 12th and Chestnut Streets.

If all are completed, the four hotels would add a combined 1,268 rooms to the city's inventory of 11,600 - enough to support the expanded Pennsylvania Convention Center, which officials say requires about 12,500 rooms.

In addition, a new hotel tax will kick in July 1, boosting the rate to 15.5 percent from 15.2 percent, or 50 cents per room night - additional revenue that will go toward marketing the city's tourism industry.

Original source: The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Lonely Planet put together a list of the top U.S. travel desinations for 2013. Our fair city clocked in at number four.

Forget the cheesesteaks and tri-corner hat, Philadelphia is becoming known as an art capital. In addition to the world renowned Philadelphia Museum of Art, the formerly remote the Barnes Foundation, a once private collection of Matisse, Renoir and Cézanne, has a new central location. And it’s not just the big museums – Philly’s gallery scene is exploding with new venues like the Icebox garnering international attention and turning the Northern Liberties and Fishtown neighborhoods into the new hot arts hub. First Fridays, the monthly gallery open house, long a tradition in Old City, has expanded to the refurbished Loft District, where the party goes on in a host of new bars, clubs and live music venues.

Original Source: LonelyPlanet.com
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