Chicago’s mayoral office announced record hotel performance numbers for 2013. The city’s room supply is currently the highest it has ever been, and 275,000 room nights were added last year. Hotel occupancy was tallied at 75.38 percent, a 0.2 percent increase over 2012 and higher than the city’s previous record, set in 2007, when the room inventory was substantially smaller.
When Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office he worked with officials to create the streamlined Choose Chicago marketing organization and made boosting tourism a priority, setting a goal of attracting 50 million visitors per year by 2020. In 2012 Chicago welcomed 46.2 million visitors.