© E rnamouzioumnas.con CQ asaaesuas 1 opmsizcenners Leisure room nights to hit 1M Philadelphia's hotel market is made up of three major market segments: leisure, group and commercial, but only the last two have broken the 1 million mark when it comes to total hotel room nights booked. That's about to change soon. ‘The leisure segment has had a very successfull 2015 thus far; out of all three segments, it's had the most growth —a nearly 4 percent increase ‘year-over-year during the first six ‘months of 2015 — with 416,617 room nights booked, “Nobody can deny the fastest- growing of those [segments] over the past several years has been the leisure segment,” said Peter Tyson, vice president at PKF Consulting, “It's gaining importance and will remain, 80.” ‘The group segment booked more than 1 million room nights in 2002, while commercial reached the mark last year, according to Tyson, PKF Consulting projects letsure will book 995,412 room nights by year end. “Give us.a couple of good weekends, and we could hit the million,” Tyson said. isure is expected to hit that million mark next year, he said, with a projection of 1.01 million room nights. ‘Tyson credits the work of Visit Philadelphia, the city’s destination ‘marketing organization geared toward leisure, and the increasing number of hotels coming into the market for the MILESTONE REACHED ‘segments upswing, ‘The fewer number of conventions coming into town is also a factor. “With fewer conventions and ‘groups on weekends than last year, that leaves more available hotel rooms to be occupied by the leisure segment,” he said, showing the importance of this particular segment. Meryl Levitz, president and CEO of Visit Philadelphia, said the biggest factors of the uptick can be attributed to the city’s growing food and outdoor space scene. “That signifies to people entertainment, fun, variety, novelty and the ability to be together, which is something the two biggest groups ~ milllennials and boomers — value,” she said. “It's a good place to hang out and be” Out of the three segments, leisure has seen the most consistent growth {in the past 10 years, according to PKF data, It's grown every year since 2005 except for slight dip in 200; ithad a strong, rebound in 2012. "son sald the la dip in 201 could be Meryl attrbuted toa number Levitz of things, nctudinga major event like the Army-Navy Game not being in town (it was in Landover, Maryland, that year) or even bad Leisure has been consistently increasing 657,000 2005 Source: PKF Consulting Cea ace) 2015 rt (projected) 2016 ‘weather during the leisure months. (One thing is clear, though: Leisure will continue to succeed. “Isa good reflection of all the effort that's been put in to make the city a destination over the last 30 years,” Levitz said. “Sustained marketing certainly helps... It's an honor to be able to promote all this and get people in to see it I's a pleasure now ‘compared to what it used to be.”