Interview: Chicago Tourism CEO on the Next Generation of Tourists
Skift Take
Chicago is often left off the list of foreign tourists' must-see U.S. cities so its honing its marketing strategies on Chinese where its efforts will pay off the most.
Editor’s Note: Skift is publishing a series of interviews with CEOs of destination marketing organizations where we discuss the future of their organizations and the evolving strategies for attracting visitors. Read all the interviews as they come out here.
This continues our series of CEO interviews that began with online travel CEOs in Future of Travel Booking (now an e-book), and continued with hotel CEOs in the Future of the Guest Experience series (which is also an e-book).
Chicago is ready to take its place among New York and Los Angeles as one of the cities lusted after by foreign tourists. Although its visitor arrivals have grown faster than expected, the city's leadership has its eyes on even greater success.
Marketing Chicago, and raising awareness of its attractions from restaurants to plays, is at the center of its growth strategy.
Skift recently spoke with the CEO of Choose Chicago Don Welsh about his marketing strategy in China, the city's new branding campaign, and how it validates its budget growth. An edited version of the interview can be found here:
Skift: Chicago is a well-known destination and its tourism appeal is growing. Chicago welcomed a record 50.2 million visitors in 2014. Congratulations. Do you hope that Chicago will become an international tourist hub on par with New York or L.A.?
Don Welsh: It is incredibly important. It's one of three goals that the mayor established when taking office four years ago. The first goal was to reach 50 million visitors by 2020 and we were close to accomplishing that when the mayor raised the goal to 55 million. We broke the 50-million mark last year.
Goal two has to do with the fact that we have the largest convention center in the western hemisphere at McCormick Place. We have a specific goal of booking 2.4 million convention room nights a year and 55 new groups.
Goal three was to move from the 10th position to the 5th position in the U.S. among international visitors by 2020. We’ve moved up one spot to the 9th spot, re
