Chicago sees large spike in UK, Irish visitors
Choose Chicago is seeing a strong tourism recovery from the UK and Ireland.
They are close to pre-pandemic visitation levels after a strong year of recovery.
In 2022, Chicago tourism businesses welcomed over 30,000 visitors from Ireland, capturing a 97% recovery share.
Nearly 100,000 visitors from the UK visited in 2022.
Together, they were significant contributors to the increase in total international visitors to Chicago in 2022.
International visitation was up 161% from 2021 levels to 1.4 million visitors.
Chicago also welcomed a total of 48 million domestic visitors in 2022, which was 59% more than 2021/
It stands at 81% of 2019 pre-Covid levels.
Choose Chicago says the first six months of 2023 are proving to be even stronger for the Chicago tourism economy.
This year sees major events coming to Chicago, including recent Taylor Swift concerts, the James Beard Foundation Awards and the sailing Grand Prix.
The first weekend of June saw an all-time record for hotel demand and revenue, with an average of 44,383 hotel rooms occupied on Friday and Saturday night.
From January through May, hotel room demand throughout the city is up 21% year-over-year.
The first ever NASCAR Street Race just concluded over the 4th of July weekend, with Lollapalooza, one of the largest and most iconic music festivals, returning in August.
Choose Chicago CEO, Lynn Osmond, says: “We’re thrilled to see visitor numbers on the rise again post Covid.”
“Chicago is a perfect year round destination, and we look forward to welcoming even more visitors from the UK and Ireland”.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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