The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania provides a number of grants, loans, loan guarantees and other non-financial, business assistance programs to foster the growth of businesses in the travel and tourism industry.
An overview and links to the various programs can be found on this site. Please click on the links for Pennsylvania's financial assistance programs for tourism or technical assistance programs, or go to dced.pa.gov for information on the business assistance programs offered by the commonwealth.
Local Financial Assistance Programs
Journeying Toward Freedom | Juneteenth Grant Opportunity
Voices Underground, a Chester County-based organization with extensive experience in promoting African American cultural history through scholarly research, transformative experiences, and historical memorialization, in partnership with The Pennsylvania Tourism Office, is committed to seeing Pennsylvania become the nation’s leader in African American Cultural Heritage Tourism. We believe the holiday of Juneteenth, often hailed as “African American Independence Day”—especially as it is now a national holiday – offers a critically important opportunity for pursuing this commitment.
Journeying Toward Freedom is an initiative created by Voices Underground and Pennsylvania’s Office of Marketing, Tourism, and Film to promote the celebration of Juneteenth across the state of Pennsylvania. The goals of this initiative are to:
- Promote African American Cultural Heritage in Pennsylvania,
- Nurture Community Collaboration
- Expand the Community’s Narrative about itself
- Leaven national conversations about African American Cultural History.
As part of this initiative, we are pleased to offer grant assistance to communities across the state of Pennsylvania with a history of Juneteenth celebrations. This assistance will be in the form of a matching grant in the amount of $15,000. Grants submissions are due by Friday, March 18, 2022 by 5:00 p.m.
To learn more and apply for this grant opportunity, visit the Voices Underground website.
State Financial Assistance Programs
Pennsylvania provides planning grants, low-interest loans, and loan guarantees to tourism-related businesses in the commonwealth. The commonwealth also provides the Regional Marketing Partnership Grant program, which is open to officially designated regional marketing organizations and to consortia of businesses or other entities that come together to market a specific experience to tourists and offered statewide or across multiple regions. The regional marketing partnership grants are awarded on a competitive basis. The Tourism Promotion Assistance Grant program is restricted to the state's designated tourism promotion agencies. Please click on the links below for each of the state's financial assistance programs available to entities involved in the tourism industry.
First Local Development District Loans
Technical Assistance
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania offers a variety of programs to help Pennsylvania businesses grow and prosper. The programs are generally targeted to small- and medium-sized businesses and cover a wide range of topics ranging from financing and regulatory compliance to energy efficiency and product development, among many others.
Please click on the following links to learn more about Pennsylvania's technical assistance programs.
Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs)
Pennsylvania’s Small Business Development Centers, or SBDCs, provide technical assistance and consulting services to current and prospective entrepreneurs and existing small businesses through a network of 18 university-based centers and more than 100 outreach centers located throughout the state. The mission of Pennsylvania’s SBDCs is to grow the economy of Pennsylvania by providing entrepreneurs and small-business owners with the education, information and tools necessary to build successful businesses. SBDC staff provide confidential, no-cost consulting services to entrepreneurs and small-business owners in one-on-one sessions to develop practical solutions for a wide range of business issues including financing, testing a new business proposition, shaping a business plan, personnel/human resource issues and considerations, investigating funding opportunities or new markets, regulatory compliance, and many others.
Learn more about the services and assistance available from Pennsylvania's network of SBDCs.
Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program (PennTAP)
The Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program, or PennTAP, provides confidential, no-cost technical assistance to Pennsylvania’s small and entrepreneurial businesses to resolve specific technical questions or needs. A program of Penn State University, PennTAP is a federal-state-university partnership for economic development that uses a network of technical specialists located throughout the state with expertise in a variety of focus areas including energy efficiency, environmental compliance, occupational health and safety, advanced information technology, and product development, among others. Focusing on small and entrepreneurial businesses that typically lack the expertise and/or resources to address these types of issues in-house, PennTAP’s technical specialists provide objective, unbiased advice and experience-based solutions and connections to other partners, expertise, resources, and programs.
Learn more about the services and assistance available from PennTAP.
Local Development Districts (LDDs)
echnical assistance is available for businesses seeking to expand their markets through Pennsylvania’s Local Development Districts, which are designated by the Appalachian Regional Commission and serve 52 of the Commonwealth’s 67 counties.
Learn more about the services and assistance available from the Local Development Districts.