Bill Wade/Post-GazetteDowntown Pittsburgh from the Duquesne Incline station. 
Larry Roberts/Post-GazetteAgnes R. Katz Plaza, aka "Eyeball Park" in the Cultural District. 
Bob Donaldson/Post-Gazette"Tommy Typhoon" Nuttel gives the passengers on the Gateway Clipper Empress a show as he races his Jetorator over the Ohio River at the Rivers Casino. Pittsburgh, the city that one century ago was awash in the money of steel production, is benefiting today from a less conspicuous industry: tourism.
Visitors to Allegheny County are expected to spend more than $5 billion this year, mostly during the summer and mostly in Pittsburgh, said Craig Davis, CEO of VisitPittsburgh, at an event in late May. The hundreds of thousands of visitors who sleep in local hotels, eat at local restaurants and cheer for Pittsburgh sports teams are having untold effects on the local economy. With no end in sight for the rise in tourism, local and regional businesses are seeking to expand their reach, pulling visitors from across the mid-Atlantic region as well as from overseas.
Tourists to Allegheny County plus its surrounding counties spent $7.8 billion in 2014, according to a recent study of Pennsylvania's economy by Tourism Economics.
Pittsburgh and its countryside represent about 20 percent of Pennsylvania's tourism spending, putting it alongside the Philadelphia area and the south-central portion of the state, including Gettysburg, Lancaster and York. Philadelphia and the south-central area each contributed over 20 percent of total state tourism spending in 2014. The state Legislature has recently focused on tourism across Pennsylvania, calling tourism spending a top priority and considering an increase in Allegheny County's hotel tax.
State tourism officials are promoting Pennsylvania beyond the state's borders, advertising destinations such as Pittsburgh, Gettysburg and Philadelphia at international tourism conferences and trade expositions.
The biggest gains in annual visitor spending within Allegheny County have been in recreation, which rose $339 million between 2009 and 2014. In that same period, total visitor spending increased by $1.3 billion.
A host of individual attractions are reporting an increase in the number of visitors.
"We're very encouraged by attendance so far this year," said Bill Schlageter marketing director at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh on the North Side. "We just wrapped up a year where we broke all the records, so we're feeling very good about our facility."
The Children's Museum saw record-breaking attendance for the second year in a row, with over 302,000 people visiting the museum, a 9.5 percent increase over 2014. The stream of visitors is steady throughout the year, Mr. Schlageter said.
Summer is always a big time for tourism, but the month of June in particular is a major moneymaking period for the Pittsburgh Cultural District, Downtown, which saw attendance at its attractions spike to almost 500,000 in June for the last three years. Through the rest of the year, Cultural District attendance tends to hover below 200,000 visitors per month, according to data provided by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.
Heinz Hall, the Benedum, the Byham, O'Reilly Theater and the August Wilson Center for African American Culture are among the attractions in the city's Cultural District.
The majority of visitors to the district come from Allegheny County and the six surrounding counties — Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland — but close to 20 percent of all tickets are bought by people living outside the immediate Pittsburgh region.
"We are seeing more purchases from new out-of-market households," said Marc Fleming, vice president of marketing and communications for Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. "These are people who have never purchased in the Cultural District before and are coming for the fist time. I think this can be attributed to the increased attention that Pittsburgh has received nationally and internationally as a destination."
All this attention has driven hotel prices up in the city. Last month saw the most expensive Pittsburgh hotel room rates in the last six years when the average Pittsburgh hotel room went for $134 per night. It was the most lucrative month in a long time for hotels in the Pittsburgh region, which collectively earned over $79 million in one month, according to the hotel market data collection agency STR Global.
Tourists are even beginning to outnumber local Pittsburghers at some destinations. For instance, roughly three-quarters of traffic on the Duquesne Incline is now tourists, up from about half of all traffic over two decades ago, said Mark McNalley, executive manager of the Duquesne Incline.
Over 600,000 people rode the Duquesne Incline last year. Fifteen years ago, Mr. McNalley said, he would have been happy to have seen half that figure. And many of the new visitors come from outside the United States.
"A week doesn't go by that we don't have international visitors. It's fascinating who's passing through here. It used to always be a busload from Cleveland, and that just isn't the case anymore," Mr. McNalley said.
These demographic shifts are supported by state tourism figures, which show that tourists to Allegheny County are increasingly coming from outside the state. Whereas seven years ago a large number of overnight visitors in Allegheny County came from either Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, last year the top cities of origin for tourists were Cleveland and New York City.
Jeff Kotula, president of the Washington County Tourism Promotion Agency, isn't worried about competing with Allegheny County for tourists.
"I look at tourism as a very cooperative industry, where we all work together," Mr. Kotula said. "We work very closely with VisitPittsburgh, Butler County and Greene County. If [tourists] come to Washington County, they're going to stop in Pittsburgh, and if they go to Pittsburgh, we're hoping they also visit Washington County."
While Washington County may lack the big attractions of Allegheny County, Mr. Kotula said, his county has cultivated a national reputation through events such as the annual Dick's Sporting Goods Pony League World Series, the Adios race at The Meadows Racetrack and Casino, and a host of large airs.
"Tourism in Washington County remains one of our strongest industries," Mr. Kotula said.
Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, the story is the same. In 2015, the historic town of Gettysburg in Adams County surpassed its highest attendance on record, which followed a record year in 2013, the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Tourism brings in around $660 million each year for Adams County, and the visitor numbers are showing no sign of abating.
"So far in 2016, we are holding flat on 2015," said Carl Whitehill, director of communications with Destination Gettysburg. While the Gettysburg battlefield remains the biggest attraction in the area, Mr. Whitehill said, the county is encouraging visitors to stay for multiple nights and visit local wineries and restaurants.
Finnegan Schick: fschick@post-gazette.com.
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