PHILADELPHIA, April 25, 2001 – Visitors to Philadelphia can now seamlessly book hotel accommodations online, at the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation’s (GPTMC) website, www.gophila.com. GPTMC initiated the reservation program in cooperation with the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association and WorldRes.com, an Internet-based, real-time hotel reservation and distribution network.

"The beauty of the system is that it is a one-stop, one-step shopping experience for people already committed to visiting the greater Philadelphia area," said Mickey Rowley, executive director, Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association. "Visitors can book a room without ever having to pick up a telephone."

The new system, WorldRes, will target the more than 59 million travelers already using the Internet to get information about destinations and check prices. It will also, according to GPTMC President and CEO, Meryl Levitz, "close the loop on our online marketing efforts. The more than one million consumers who visit our website each year can now easily book a hotel room while already on our site."

Initially, more than 30 Center City Philadelphia and Airport area hotels are expected to participate in the system, which will be online in time for the summer tourist season. Visitors to www.gophila.com will see a large "Book It" icon on GPTMC’s homepage. Visitors can then review a list of hotels and actually see what rooms look like, the location and the cost. This will especially benefit independently owned hotels without national websites and reservation systems. Hotels in the five-county region will be added in the second phase of the roll-out.

GPTMC is a non-profit organization dedicated to generating awareness of and visitation to Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties. For more information about travel to Philadelphia visit www.gophila.com or call (877) GO-PHILA.

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Note to Editors: For photographic images of Philadelphia and its surrounding countryside visit the photo gallery section of www.gophila.com/pressroom.