Strong summer for Chicago tourism and hospitality industry

Thursday, 03 Oct, 2024 0

Chicago just had a banner summer season for tourism.

Choose Chicago released visitation metrics showing a busy summer with 3.4 million hotel room nights during June-August, with is 5% up on a year ago.

Chicago hosted the DNC this year as well as other major conventions, spurring group hotel room demand of 1.1 million room nights.

This exceeded exceeding 2019 levels.

It was also a strong summer for leisure travel, with events like Lollapalooza and the NASCAR Chicago Street Race contributing to 2.3 million leisure room nights, 4% more than in 2023.

The strong summer drove all-time records in summer hotel revenue ($942 million) and city tax revenue ($53 million) – both were up 13% year over year.

The summer season also welcomed over 671,000 international visitors to Chicago.

Looking ahead, Chicago is gearing up for a busy end of 2024, with major events like the launch of Theatre Season, Christkindlmarket, the Wintrust Magnificent Mile Lights Festival, and more.

Chicago was named Best Big City in the U.S. in the Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards.

“Chicago’s historic eighth consecutive win of this award reflects the rich diversity of culture, culinary innovation, and experiences our city offers,” said IL Governor JB Pritzker.

“The rest of the world is catching on to the fact that there’s truly no more dynamic destination in America than right here.”

TravelMole Editorial Team

Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.

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