Tourism

ATLANTIC CITY — The stabbing deaths of two Canadian tourists outside a casino hotel left tourism officials stunned and dismayed Monday, casting a shadow over the formal opening on Memorial Day weekend of the newest gambling palace and tripping up a $30 million-a-year campaign to rebrand and revive the sagging resort town. The two victims, women ages 80 and 47, were stabbed and killed during a robbery Monday morning outside Bally's Atlantic City casino hotel, just steps from where a police officer was sitting in a patrol car. Police declined to provide the names of the victims, or precisely where they were from, pending notification of family.

As co-chairman of Historic Philadelphia Inc., a nonprofit agency dedicated to making the most of Philadelphia's history, I believe economic stability can be nurtured with enhanced tourism. The proper use of tourism can help strengthen our fiscal health and lay the groundwork for a more vibrant economy. We need to recognize that tourism is Philadelphia's final frontier. The town criers and walking tours that Historic Philadelphia Inc. has begun in the historic sections represent one small step in a much larger journey.

Four weeks of fun and games provided by the World Cup failed to relieve Mexico of its national problems, experts said yesterday. As thousands of fans and journalists who spent June attending the soccer tournament began leaving Mexico City yesterday, business and financial analysts said the event had not lived up to expectations. The Confederation of National Chambers of Commerce said in a statement that tourism for the World Cup had failed to reach expected levels. The confederation noted that tourism had increased in June by only 11.7 percent over the same period last year, far less than had been predicted.

During a recent tourism consulting assignment in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which means "city of apples," I was quickly escorted to the Green Market, where I tasted the delicious fruit this city is known for. I also was invited to drink the local milk that is known as "kumys" and is fermented. The source of this milk is the mare, as in female horse. Perhaps due to the fermentation or the source itself, I began to feel a little tipsy, and soon experienced the magic of this land whose settlement stretches back to Paleolithic times.

No question that Maryanne Mebane got the call of the day: a woman who wanted information on how to elope in Philadelphia. This was just the kind of inquiry that Mebane and the other staffers pray for at the Convention and Visitors Bureau's "flying saucer" information center, 16th Street and JFK Boulevard. "This would involve an overnight stay," she explained. "Perhaps several. " Moreover, the prospective groom's preference was Las Vegas, a truly worthy opponent. Mebane sprang into action, spewing out phone numbers for the marriage license office in City Hall, the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and a church in Valley Forge National Historical Park she thought would be an ideal venue for such an event.

Gov. Rendell's office announded $5 million in funding to promote Pennsylvania tourism. The awards include $1.8 million for the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp. Other awards announced yesterday include: $400,000 for the Alleghenies region; $320,000 for the Northeast Mountains area; and $1.3 millin for the Pittsburgh region.

Longwood Gardens is fertilizing more than its soil these days; it's helping bring the area a large increase in tourism. By March, renovations on the Longwood Meeting House, owned by the Gardens, will have changed the historic Quaker site into a tourist center, which will be leased to the Chester County Tourist Bureau. Nearby, East Marlborough officials are talking to a hotel owner who wants to expand and to a New Jersey developer who wants to build a hotel. The Chester County Tourist Bureau talks to 2,500 to 3,000 people a year at an information desk it operates in the lobby of the Gardens site, according to Bea Harrison, director of group services and marketing at the bureau.

Travelers visiting Chester County spent $144 million in 1990, according to the latest figures available from the Pennsylvania Department of Commerce. The total was up 9 percent over 1989, the biggest increase in revenue from tourism in the five-county area that includes Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Lancaster Counties. Tourists and business travelers spent $3.2 billion in the five-county area in 1990. The increase was good news for the state and for Chester County, which collected more than $6.3 million in state tax receipts from the travel and tourism industry and more than $1.6 million in local tax receipts, according to Paul Daddario, head of the Chester County Tourist Bureau.

Bucks County's museums are bringing in traveling exhibits, events at its historic sites are being publicized, and other attractions are getting much-needed funding, thanks to a tourism grant program that since 2008 has handed out more than $1 million. This week, 23 recipients of spring grants were announced, among them the Mercer Museum, which will use its $15,000 "for the fees for the Apron Chronicles Exhibit, and for promotion inside and beyond Bucks County," executive vice president Molly W. Lowell said.

"YEEEOOOOOOOW. " Dance night at the Swallow Hotel. A lumbering, pasty-skinned Bulgarian pulled at the hand of a shy Vietnamese girl half his size, trying to get her to the dance floor. When she wouldn't go, he pulled off her conical rice hat, smashed it on his head with a shout and headed to the floor alone. Up on the stage, the band was singing to a girl somewhere in London or America, "Don't leave me, baby," and a whole table full of Soviets was singing along with more gusto than the lead singer could muster.

Bucks County's museums are bringing in traveling exhibits, events at its historic sites are being publicized, and other attractions are getting much-needed funding, thanks to a tourism grant program that since 2008 has handed out more than $1 million. This week, 23 recipients of spring grants were announced, among them the Mercer Museum, which will use its $15,000 "for the fees for the Apron Chronicles Exhibit, and for promotion inside and beyond Bucks County," executive vice president Molly W. Lowell said.

The scion of a prominent Chester County family apparently committed suicide in a federal jail cell hours before he was expected to plead guilty to taking teenage boys overseas and sexually molesting them. John Charles Ware, 47, was found unresponsive 8 p.m. Sunday in his cell at the Federal Detention Center in Center City Philadelphia and was rushed to Jefferson University Hospital, where he died early Monday. Darren Howard, spokesman for the center, said Ware apparently took his own life.

ATLANTIC CITY - This town's new slogan, "Do A.C.," aims not only to rebrand the seaside resort, battered by gambling competition in other states, but also to encourage visitors to enjoy the many attractions that do not involve slots or table games. Ads touting Atlantic City as a year-round destination for dining, entertainment, nightlife, the beach, and the famed Boardwalk - and not just a weekend getaway - were presented Thursday by the Atlantic City Alliance, the entity charged with marketing the resort's new state-run tourism district.

ATLANTIC CITY - When Atlantic City rolled out its "Always Turned On" tourism slogan in 2003, critics felt it was a little, well, risque. Nine years later, they've fixed that. The new slogan? "Do AC!" It's part of a $30 million casino-funded campaign to promote the nation's second-largest gambling resort through a group called the Atlantic City Alliance. The slogan, written by an agency the alliance hired, tested well, according to Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority president Jeff Vasser.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - To most of the world, the name Titanic means tragedy, spiced with romance, sacrifice, and luxury. But in Belfast, where it was built, the doomed ship is a triumph of industry, enterprise, and engineering. The city hopes the rest of the world will soon see it that way, too. Northern Ireland's capital, scarred by 30 years of Catholic-Protestant violence and mired in Europe's economic doldrums, is gambling on a gleaming new Titanic tourist attraction to bring it fame beyond the Troubles - and a renewed sense of civic pride.

ATLANTIC CITY - New Jersey's $38 billion tourism business - the state's third-largest industry - may be back on a roll after posting a 7 percent revenue increase in 2011 over the year before. And the particularly warm winter, which has attracted throngs of out-of-season visitors to the Jersey Shore, may extend the upward trend into the 2012 summer season, officials predict. That dose of optimism, after relatively flat tourism numbers between 2008 and 2010, came in a keynote address by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno at the three-day 2012 New Jersey Tourism Industry Association conference last week at the Golden Nugget.

By Ken Salazar Most Americans recognize Independence Hall as one of the most famous symbols of Philadelphia, the nation's birth, and the freedom we share as a people. Philadelphians may know it as the top tourist destination in the city, attracting 3.7 million visitors who spend $146 million every year and support more than 2,100 jobs. But we can do more to welcome tourists from across the country and especially around the globe to places like Independence Hall. President Obama wants America to be the top tourist destination in the world, and Philadelphia's history and culture make it a great place to start.

ATLANTIC CITY - The document that sets the strategic framework for this Shore resort's newly created tourism district was unanimously approved Wednesday by the board of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority. The board, meeting at the Atlantic City Convention Center, voted 14-0 in favor of the plan, setting the stage for the district's implementation. Proponents say the state-run district's aim is to enhance the visitor experience and help broaden the array of offerings to make Atlantic City a world-class tourist destination that relies not only on gaming, but also on conventions, cultural attractions, entertainment, and retail and residential development.

Mixing an economic appeal with presidential politics, President Obama on Thursday pitched tourism in the Magic Kingdom and mingled with campaign donors in the Big Apple, tending to political concerns with an eye on the forthcoming Republican primaries. "I hope you know that the values you cherish, what you stand for, what you believe in, are the things I cherish and I believe in and I'm willing to fight for," Obama said at Daniel, an exclusive Manhattan restaurant, in the first of four glitzy fund-raisers.