City's Tourism Agency Getting Extra $5M To Promote Chicago, Airports
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the City of Chicago is upping the ante in its bid to promote tourism here.
WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports, at the annual meeting of Choose Chicago – the city's tourism agency – the mayor was so busy expressing optimism about bringing visitors here, he almost forgot to make the announcement he'd come to deliver, and had to go back to the microphone.
"I forgot to mention that we will be putting five more million dollars into marketing and advertising the City of Chicago around the world," he said. "All from savings we have, to make sure that more and more people city see our city around the world, and come here, and that will be part of the advertising that will go on to complement all the other efforts we have made in the last year."
Mayor Increasing Tourism Agency Funds
The city had set a goal of 50 million visitors by 2020, but Choose Chicago president Don Welsh said they'll exceed that goal.
The city currently averages 43.6 million visitors a year.
The extra funding the mayor announced will go toward marketing efforts to promote the city and its airports, O'Hare and Midway. The goal is to increase use of both airports.
O'Hare International Airport is already the second busiest in the world in terms of the number of aircraft that use the airport, and third busiest in terms of passengers.
Midway International Airport is ranked 34th in the nation in the number of aircraft, and 27th in the number of passengers.
