Tourism Means Big Bucks & Jobs in Bucks County

Tourism means big bucks in Bucks County, and big bucks means jobs.

According to information announced at Friday’s Bucks County Conference and Visitors Bureau annual lunch, tourism has an estimated $877.3 million impact on the local economy and supports over 11,600 jobs.

Dozens of the county’s top tourism and business leaders gathered at Parx Casino East for a lunch that celebrated and looked forward to growth in local tourism, which is the second largest industry in Bucks County and the state.

County tourism agency marketing and communications director Paul Bencivengo said that hotel revenues are up 6.5 percent over the past year. Aside from the usual draw of weddings and meetings, sports were a bigger draw than ever. Sporting events lead to thousands of hotel rooms being booked throughout Bucks County.

Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley spoke to the crowd and said that overall Pennsylvania has a growing $32 billion tourism industry. He added that Gov. Tom Corbett recently created a tourism group that combines all of the state’s marketing efforts.

“We’re competing for global dollars because we have a global asset,” Cawley said of Bucks County.

Bencivengo told the gather audience about how the Bucks County Conference and Visitors Bureau, which is more commonly known as Visit Bucks County, has harnessed social media to market local attractions. The group uses Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinerest to spread the word about all Bucks County has to offer.

Through social media “we’re able to connect directly with our customers,” Bencivengo said.

VisitBucksCounty.com had over 1 million visitors this year, but tradition visits like phone calls and in-person stops at the visitors center still rank in the thousands. All interactions are handled by the nine full-time and 25 part-time employees at the visitors center on Street Road in Bensalem.

Marketing is also shifting from just telling people about a destination, Bencivengo said. He added potential guests want the story behind the location.

As part of that shift, a several-minute-long video featuring Joseph Maxian of Sand Castle Winery in Upper Bucks County played and was met with applause from the group. The video was produced more like a documentary as opposed to a commercial.

As the way people travel changes, the tourism industry is having to change with it, Cawley said. In Bucks County, it certainly appears that way.