What were Greater Philadelphia's most-visited tourist attractions in 2018?

Tourism season is upon us, which means millions of people will travel to Philadelphia, fillings its hotel rooms and visiting its many tourist attractions.

About 21.3 million visited the top 25 tourist attractions in the Philadelphia region, according to the Business Journal top tourist attractions list released this weekend.

The top players' rankings remained largely unchanged from 2017. Independence National Historical Park and SugarHouse Casino retained their top two positions, with 4.56 million and 4 million visitors, respectively.

Trading spots this year were Peddler's Village in Bucks County and Valley Forge National Historical Park, ranked Nos. 3 and 4, respectively. They had 2 million and 1.9 million visitors. Longwood Gardens in Chester County maintained its No. 5 spot with 1.4 million visitors.

New to this year's list is Philadelphia Magic Gardens on South Street, which in 2018 had 160,000 visitors, and the National Liberty Museum, which had 40,000 visitors.

Attractions' performance is a boon for the local economy. Many of them are arts and cultural nonprofits, and that industry generated $4.1 billion in economic impact, according to a 2017 report by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

That impact created the equivalent of 55,225 full-time jobs every year.

In 2017, a record 43.3 million domestic travelers and 646,100 overseas travelers visited the five-country Philadelphia region.

Domestic visitors in 2017 spent $$7.1 billion, according to Econsult Solutions and Longwood International. Overseas visitors in the same year spent $651 million, according to Tourism Economics.

About 11%, or $786 million, went toward recreation. Food and beverage and retail were the top two categories for spending, at $1.9 billion and $1.1 billion.

That same year, City Council unanimously approved a new neighborhood improvement district called the Philadelphia Hospitality Improvement Levy, or PHiL — funded by a 0.75 percent assessment rate on top of a hotel's daily rate.

It was created to get new business and incentivize major conventions and events to come to Philadelphia.

PHiL in 2018 secured millions of dollars in its first year to fund events with a combined impact of $1.6 billion, according to the head of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association.