Choose Chicago’s budget doubles to $32 million thanks to hotel tax increase
Skift Take
Money is the easiest way to compete with the comparatively bloated budgets of Las Vegas and L.A., but creativity counts for just as much with viral videos and online content now at the pulse of cities’ campaigns.
Choose Chicago, the city's tourism and convention bureau, is expecting its annual budget to nearly double this fiscal year, to $32.6 million, as it pulls in a portion of the city's hotel tax increase, enacted last year, as well as a relatively new tax on airport taxi rides.
While still outgunned by such rival convention cities as Las Vegas and Orlando, whose marketing budgets are $113.9 million and $49.8 million respectively, Chicago is now within the range of such tourism competitors as New York, at $40 million, and San Francisco, at $27.4 million.
"We're extremely grateful for what we have now," said Don Wel
