NORRISTOWN >> Tourism officials in Montgomery County estimate a nearly $9.3 million impact for the county from the Democratic National Convention being held in Philadelphia in July.
“This is a great civic exercise whether you’re Democrat or Republican, this is going to be great for our community and I’m excited,” Commissioner Josh Shapiro said.
Montgomery County is an official DNC hotel partner. Of the 57 delegations to the convention, 18 are scheduled to stay in hotels throughout Montgomery County.
“Montgomery County will play a very important role in this convention as the official DNC Hotel Partner. The original request of our organization was to coordinate 5 to 6,000 total room nights as an overflow to the city of Philadelphia,” said Lisa Karl, vice president of sales for the Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Board. “We contracted twice that amount within our Montgomery County hotel collection.”
Members of delegates from Alabama, Hawaii, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon and 13 other states and territories will be rooming in Valley Forge, Lansdale, Conshohocken, King of Prussia and Collegeville.
“This fall we conducted hotel tours within our community with the delegation representatives, and that resulted in 11,000 total room nights,” Karl said.
The tourism and convention board is already preparing to roll out the welcome wagon for the delegates who will call Montgomery County home for the weekend of July 25 to 28. Delegations use their hotels as a base of operations, where they eat, hold receptions and conduct business.
“Our game plan is to go above and beyond with our hospitality community by planning a July delegation welcome event, as well as, of course, personal bags upon the arrival at all of our hotels. It is truly a great opportunity to showcase our region as a world-class destination,” Karl said.
The commissioners expressed their gratitude for the hard work done by the tourism board to attract the delegations to Montgomery County.
“There’s four other counties they could have chosen from and these delegates are coming to Montgomery County, and I think as you saw, a $9 million economic impact,” Shapiro said. “I recall that many of us Democrats said back in 2000 that we were going to be Republicans for a week, and I’ll challenge my friend Joe Gale to be a Democrat.”
Republican Commissioner Joe Gale replied, “Yeah, why not?”
“I think for $9 million for the county, you have to consider it,” Shapiro joked.
