Expecting more, receiving a bit less.

What price fame?

That's what some Philadelphia hotel managers are asking them-selves this week as they watch the city's image escalate even as their hotel revenues fall short of expectations.

"This 'summer thing' is not happening," said Charlie Hines, president of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association, vice chairman of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau and general manager of the mammoth Philadelphia Marriott on Market Street.

Contrary to conventional thinking, the Marriott's catering and room sales have come up short in the days leading up to and during the week of the Republican National Convention, a four-day affair starting Monday.

Room-nights booked at the Marriott, one of the city's busiest convention hotels situated adjacent to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, "dropped considerably," Hines said -- from an anticipated 12,000 to 9,000.

Moreover, catering functions are off by as much as 40 percent.

At the new …