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.

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

• Hotel room demand in the Central Business District was 589,889 rooms occupied in January, a 7.6% increase from 548,433 rooms a year ago.
• The overall average daily rate (ADR) was $130.77 in January, up from $126.16 a year ago.
• The Chicago Central Business District has 122 hotel properties comprising more than 40,000 rooms.
• O’Hare – the world’s busiest airport in terms of flight operations – and Midway International airports served a combined 7.58 million air passengers in December 2016, which is a slight decrease of -3.2% over December 2015 passenger volume.

Average daily rate and room demand 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 2015 Annual Report.

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, 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.  

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