Like America’s founders, a group of Philadelphia attractions wants to be in the room where it happens—or the Zoom where it happens.
Destination Philly, a collaborative marketing group, started meeting in the fall of 2017 to discuss common interests. Much like how NTA members occasionally meet in separate groups, representatives of Philadelphia attractions have been putting their heads together to discuss shared concerns, such as advertising, packaging, trade shows, marketing, group experiences, and sales.
“We used this group as a sounding board for decisions we were making at our individual institutions and as a way to learn as much as we possibly could about tour and travel industry trends,” says Gina Romanelli, director of group sales at the National Constitution Center.
Members developed a mission statement, organizational structure, membership requirements, and a list of organizational goals, with “Sell Philadelphia as an ultimate group destination” at the top. And through quarterly meetings and a vibrant travel market, the group was doing just that.
Enter the pandemic … and quarterly meetings turned into weekly Zooms.
“When COVID began, we needed our group more than ever to support each other as we watched our hard work of the past year just disappear: cancellation after cancellation, refund after refund,” Romanelli says.
Yet as time wore on and the pandemic eased, the group shifted gears from sympathy to recovery and began discussing how they could work together to restore group travel in Philadelphia. They put together a promotional piece titled “Philly’s back in business” and emailed it to an audience that’s crucial to business.
