Peter Van Allen, Staff Writer at The Philadelphia Business Journal reports:

Philadelphia hosted 710,000 international visitors last year, a gain of 29 percent, according to U.S. Department of Commerce figures released Monday.

The city’s gain was the greatest among the 20 most-visited cities in the country. Philadelphia was No. 11 last year, up one position.

In 2007, Philadelphia had 560,000 international visitors, according to figures compiled by the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries and released as part of the U.S. Travel Association’s annual International Pow Wow Conference.

“We were very excited last year when we surpassed the half-million mark with a 27 percent increase from 2006 to 2007. We never imagined we could do it again this year when international visitation is still down from its high water mark of visitation to the U.S. in 2000,” said Fritz Smith, vice president of tourism for the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The increase was attributed to favorable exchange rates, the addition of direct flights linking Philadelphia International Airport with European cities and marketing efforts.

Typically, visitors from the United Kingdom make up a quarter of Philadelphia’s international visitors. But last year saw increased visitorship from Spain and Italy, bolstered by the addition of USAirways’ direct flights from Philadelphia to Barcelona, Venice and Milan.

Another factor was increased marketing from the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau and the state of Pennsylvania, which has a 3-year-old marketing effort in Spain.