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Navy Pier is No. 1 tourist attraction in Illinois
In ten years, a once aging US Navy pier in downtown Chicago has emerged as the state’s biggest tourist attraction.
Navy Pier, which is a busy mix of restaurants rides and retail stores, now attracts 9 million people a year.
Tourists mingle with residents at the site on Lake Michigan.
Possible new attractions include a water-based hotel and a water park.
The Pier is run jointly by the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.
It’s overshadowed in conventions by McCormick Place, but Navy Pier also serves as a site for small to medium-size trade shows and meetings in its Festival Hall, Grand Ballroom and meeting rooms. The Chicago Tribune says the pier plans to also crank up efforts to sell that space.
The goal is to keep the state’s No. 1 tourist attraction thriving in the next decade as new attractions vie for tourists’ attention and new meeting space competes for business events, said the newspaper.
Report by David Wilkening
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