City's image improves

It's too cold in winter, too hot in summer and the beach is at least an hour away.
But for the most part William Penn located this city in an ideal place for tourism, says a study of Philadelphia tourism released yesterday.

"You're sitting here with millions and millions of people within a day's drive," said Bill Siegel, whose Longwoods International company completed a tourism assessment for the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp.

More than 40 million people visited this region in 1997, he said, and the vast majority "came on rubber wheels."

Compare that to Hawaii, where tourism may be the biggest industry. Only 3.5 million visitors came from the mainland United States last year. (It's safe to assume no one drove.)

But there's a catch to this -- actually, several.

Call them New York, Washington, Boston and Williamsburg.

They're centrally located in the dense east coast, too. Washington, Boston and Williamsburg are also known for history -- the number one thing that Philly tourists say they're looking for.

And according to the Longwoods study, people within driving distance of all these places tend to have a better impression of them than they do of the place that loves them back.

Image-wise, Philadelphia scored behind those other three areas in the categories of uniqueness, popularity, excitement and "adult destination." Its image as a family destination is only slightly better than New York's. And its best image ranking fell behind Washington and New York as a city for African-American visitors.

But what's nice about image, Siegel said, is that it can be changed.

If the problem was that people who visit Philadelphia didn't like it, that would be a much bigger concern, he said. The study shows people who have been here think better of the city than people who have not.

Moreover, a year into a television advertising campaign, Philadelphia's image is already improving, Siegel said.

Since ads started running in the New York area and places like Wilkes-Barre and Harrisburg, people who have seen them are saying better things about Philadelphia than people who have not.

And, in almost every category, the city's image is slightly better now than it was in 1996 -- every category, that is, except "climate," where, for some reason, the city's image nose-dived.

The region also has recorded more visits since the ads started. That increase may be because of the ads, or just because the economy is booming. It's too early to tell.

But stay tuned -- there's more research coming.

"We're such babies at this," said tourism corporation President Meryl Levitz. "Now that we have a baseline study, we can repeat these studies every year until we have a comprehensive and consistent look at our customers."