Chicago Tourism Metrics, August 2015

Making Chicago a premier destination for tourism and entertainment is a major part of   Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Plan for Economic Growth & Jobs that WBC is implementing to drive growth in Chicago. Choose Chicago, the official destination marketing organization for Chicago, also plays an integral role in economic growth by attracting business and leisure visitors to the city.

In July, Mayor Rahm Emanuel broke ground on the new Marriott Marquis Chicago Hotel at McCormick Place. The Marriott Marquis Chicago will be part of a vibrant, authentic and walkable urban experience for convention-goers, local residents and visitors from across the city. “The City of Chicago has always been one of the country’s top destinations for tourism and conventions and the addition of the Marriott Marquis Chicago, along with the events center, will keep us on top,” said Mayor Emanuel. “Not only will this project create thousands of new jobs for Chicago residents during construction and upon its completion, but it will spur hundreds of millions of dollars of additional investment into the historic Motor Row and the Near South Side.”

The following points summarize recent hotel and air passenger trends for Chicago:

• Chicago’s overall hotel occupancy rate was 88.3% in July, up slightly from 87.4% in July 2014.
• The overall average daily rate (ADR) was $225.77 in July, up from $202.61 a year ago.
• The Chicago Central Business District has 113 hotel properties comprising more than 38,538 rooms. Recently opened hotels include the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel (241 rooms), Loews Chicago Hotel (400 rooms), and the Hyatt Centric The Loop Chicago (257 rooms).
• More than 2,400 new rooms are expected to open in the next two years, including the Hotel Indigo (156 rooms, 2016), Wicker Park Hotel (93 rooms, 2016) and the Kimpton Hotel (281 rooms, 2016).
• O’Hare – the world’s busiest airport in terms of flight operations – and Midway International airports served a combined 9.09 million air passengers in June  2015, a 7.1% increase year-over-year.

Hotel occupancy and average daily rate (ADR) and  trends are illustrated in the following charts:

Source: Choose Chicago; Chicago Department of Aviation. For more information on Chicago’s tourism landscape, please refer to the Choose Chicago website and 2014 Annual Report.

Chaired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, World Business Chicago is the public-private partnership leading the Plan for Economic Growth and Jobs in order to drive business development, cultivate talent, and put Chicago at the forefront of the global economy.

WBC’s “Economic Briefs” track indicators from month to month to gauge the strength of several aspects of Chicago’s economy, including unemployment, population, venture capital, job openings and new hires, home sales, tourism, etc. This data provides a clear analytic framework for specific Plan strategies and initiatives. For a summary of these and other economic indicators, refer to WBC’s monthly Chicago By The Numbers.