Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation
| Purpose | Tourism |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Location |
Visit Philadelphia, formally known as the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC), is a private, non-profit organization that promotes leisure travel to the five-county Philadelphia region (Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties). It was founded in 1996 by the City of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Phialdelphia Mayor Edward G. Rendell created the GPTMC in 1996 to attract tourists; the corporation operated separately from the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. According to the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, the newly created agency "took a regional approach to 'Philadelphia and Its Countryside' and formed partnerships with similar organizations in the region: the Valley Forge Convention and Visitors Board, Visit Bucks County, and the Brandywine Conference and Visitors Bureau, among others."
Its first national ad campaign took place in 1997. This campaign introduced the slogan "The City that Loves you Back" as both "a reply and a challenge to the 'I Love New York' slogan" and a way to counter the "antisocial reputation" that Philadelphia had developed. In 2009, Visit Philadelphia began a new campaign with the "With Love, Philadelphia XOXO" tagline.
Joyce Levitt, who worked for Visit Philadelphia from 2003 to 2012 and served as CFO for seven years, embezzled $210,000 from the organization between between September 2005 and the discovery of the fraud in 2012. Visit Philadelphia did not report the misconduct to authorities, instead allowing Levitt to quietly resign and pay full restitution. In 2014, following media reports, the Philadelphia District Attorney conducted a grand jury investigation leading to the prosecution of Levitt. In May 2016, in a plea agreement with prosecutors, Levitt pleaded guilty to theft, receiving stolen property, and fraud, and was sentenced to three years' probation and community service; she also forfeited her accounting license.
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