by KYW's Mike Dunn
A top official in Philadelphia's hospitality industry predicts that within a few years, the city is going to see a boom in new hotels.
The rosy hotel forecast comes from Jack Ferguson, executive vice president of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. He says at least 10 developers are at least 75% likely to build new hotels in the city by 2011, most in Center City. Some of them are so-called boutique hotels:
"Some of these hotels that are coming in are not large convention hotels. They're smaller hotels, a couple of hundred rooms apiece. And they will participate in some of the conventions, but not all of them."
Overall Ferguson predicts that the number of hotel rooms in Center City alone will jump from the current 10,000 to about 12,500.
Plans to expand the Convention Center, he says, only help matters.
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