Pittsburgh A Growing Destination For Many Groups

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – For more than 75 years, Visit Pittsburgh has been charged with bringing lots of interesting people and groups to Allegheny County.

Next July, about 5,600 lovers of four-part harmony will be in town for the annual conference of the Barbershop Harmony Society. But they aren't the only group to think Pittsburgh is successfully hitting the high notes. The National Society of Black Engineers is coming back.

"They were here just two years ago with almost 11,000 room nights that they booked, $15 million in direct spending that that organization brought and then all the talent that stays behind because of the engineering needs that are here because of some of our great companies," said Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.

"We had Google here," said Visit Pittsburgh President and CEO Craig Davis. "We had CMU. We had Pitt. Our hospitality community was well represented and we blew their socks off and they booked us."

The mayor agrees.

"They come here with these expectations that we have these rusted old mills that are falling into the rivers and there's no trees and it's just this rust belt city and they get here and they are pleasantly surprised," said Mayor Bill Peduto. "Then they spend a few days here and they fall in love with our city."

At its annual meeting Thursday, Visit Pittsburgh outlined recent success stories and looked ahead at the groups headed here, and unveiled a stunning video presentation about our city.