How much Chicago spends to try to attract conventions and visitors is less than some other American cities:

Choose Chicago has been laying the groundwork to create a so-called Tourism Improvement District that would more than double the marketing agency’s annual budget by increasing the tax on rooms in Chicago hotels with 100 or more rooms by 1.5 percentage points — to 18.9%.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has an annual operating budget of $457 million, according to a comparison prepared by Choose Chicago. That’s followed by Visit Orlando ($116 million); Discover Los Angeles ($62 million); the San Diego Tourism Authority ($57 million); and New York’s NYC & Company ($45 million).

Choose Chicago is dead last among major convention cities, with a projected budget of $33 million for 2024…

Choose Chicago, which has yet to release data for 2024, said Chicago had 52 million domestic and international visitors in 2023. The number has increased steadily in recent years, but Chicago has struggled to match the 61 million visitors of 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. Worries about high taxes and crime hurt perceptions about Chicago as a place to visit or do business.

All cities have to brand themselves to compete in the competitive market. But, apparently, they do that with different amounts of money. Does spending more money necessarily net more visitors? Not necessarily. But the budgets do look quite different. So some additional information might be helpful:

1. How much money is spent per visitor?
2. How much of that money is spent directly targeting certain visitors or groups – think like conventions that then come with a certain number of attendees – versus mass media appeals?
3. And then how much money do those visitors put back into the local economy?
4. How do these different cities fund these marketing arms? Is it primarily about taxes visitors pay or are there other significant money streams?

Let’s see what Choose Chicago does with its increased revenue.