Philadelphia and the Countryside - Press Room

This summer, as part of the new With Love, Philadelphia XOXO™ marketing campaign, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) is asking 5,000 Philadelphians to send postcards to friends and family all over the country inviting them to visit Philadelphia and stay over in a hotel.

Philadelphians can write their messages on pre-stamped postcards at a series of postcard-writing booths throughout Philadelphia in June and July. Locations include Sunoco Welcome America’s Party on the Parkway, at Citizens Bank Park and at Suburban Station.* The booths will be adorned with With Love, Philadelphia XOXO™ letters, and postcard writers may receive

The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) will debut PHILLY 360°™, The Book—the newest component of its African-American tourism marketing campaign—at The Roots Picnic on June 6, 2009. The limited-edition, hard-bound book features interviews with some of Philadelphia’s most prominent African-American tastemakers and trendsetters, including The Roots, King Britt and Ethel Cee, and details what these creative ambassadors love most about the city. All of the people featured in the book are part of GPTMC’s Philly 360°™ Coalition, a group of 50 of the city’s African-American thought leaders, cultural entrepreneurs, marketers and other stakeholders committed to promoting a 360°

History buffs, science enthusiasts, art lovers and Galileo fans eager to visit Philadelphia for the Galileo, The Medici and The Age of Astronomy exhibition—making its exclusive stop at The Franklin Institute Science Museum, April 4-September 7, 2009—need look no further than gophila.com/galileo, a specially created section on the Philadelphia’s official tourism Web site set to launch March 31. The site enables travelers to plan multiday visits in Philly, whether history-, science- or Italian-themed, from start to finish. All of the information is also available at fi.edu/galileo.

On gophila.com/galileo, visitors can:

• Get full exhibition details and find links

Population:
There are 3.9 million people residing in the five-county region (7.75 million in the Philadelphia Designated Market Area), making Philadelphia the second largest city on the East Coast and the sixth largest in the U.S.

Location:
Philadelphia is a two-hour drive from New York City, two-and-a-half hours from Washington, DC and 45 minutes from Atlantic City, with convenient access to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I-76, I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike. 25% of the United States population lives within 350 miles of Center City Philadelphia.

The city is a 90-minute flight or a one-day drive from Toronto (880

To mark the 100^th anniversary of Mother’s Day, started by Philadelphia resident and West Virginia native Anna Jarvis to honor her mother Anna Marie, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) and the Office of the City Representative are organizing the City of Motherly Love" celebration on Saturday, May 10, 2008. The open-to-the-public event will take place at 12:00 noon at the Wanamaker Building, where the first Mother’s Day celebration took place in 1908 thanks to Philadelphia entrepreneur John Wanamaker. (Another Mother’s Day commemoration took place simultaneously in West Virginia.) The building is located at 13th and Market Streets