The annual Longwood Christmas festival brings a steady wave of visitors who give Kennett Square and the surrounding towns a noticeable economic boost throughout the holiday season, writes Anthony R. Wood for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Overall, Longwood Gardens has played a “significant role in the area’s growth,” said Nancy Toltain, director of hotel operations at the Hilton Garden Inn in Kennett.
This year, local businesses pushed the holiday spirit forward by switching on the lights early and hosting a parade with Mummers and a full marching band on Nov. 22, which gave the season an earlier start than usual.
The event lined up with the first week of Longwood Gardens switching on roughly 500,000 lights for its Christmas festival, which always draws massive crowds.
Last season brought in about 650,000 visitors between Nov. 22 and Jan. 11. A large share of them ended up wandering through downtown for dinner, shopping, or even an overnight stay.
Moving the Kennett fest up on the calendar paid dividends immediately, with downtown merchants saying they saw record-breaking sales throughout Thanksgiving week. The shift also handed local businesses five pre-Christmas weekends to draw in shoppers instead of the usual four.
Read more about Longwood Gardens boosting the Kennett Square-area economy in many ways in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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