CHICAGO
Choose Chicago President & CEO, David Whitaker, announced that Marc Anderson, most recently chief sales officer of Choose Chicago, was promoted to executive vice president of the DMO.
In accepting this expanded role, Anderson will continue his oversight and direction of Choose Chicago’s convention sales team. In that role, Anderson and the team are responsible for annually booking more than 2.5 million room nights, including confirming more than 55 new meetings annually into McCormick Place, North America’s largest and most flexible convention center, according to the DMO.
“I could not be more pleased to have Marc on our team. His contributions prior to my arrival are significant,” David Whitaker, president & CEO of Choose Chicago said. “As our new executive vice president, Marc will take on additional responsibilities representing Choose Chicago with some of our most important partners and constituents, as well as internally helping me [in sales and marketing].”
Anderson is a 24-year veteran of the visitor industry. During 2002-2007, Anderson worked for the former Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau, now known as Choose Chicago. Among his achievements during this time was the sales and marketing strategy development for the McCormick Place West Building which opened in August 2007. He ended his tenure as assistant vice president of sales and then served more than eight years with The Peninsula Hotels from 2007-2015 as the regional director of marketing where he managed regional sales, marketing, public relations and brand management.
He returned to Chicago's destination sales and marketing organization in early 2015.
“I am incredibly thrilled by this new role and the added responsibilities,” said Anderson. “I am a life-long Chicagoan and wholeheartedly believe the best is to come for our fantastic city.”
Chicago's convention sales team has the industry's largest hotel room night production goal. In addition to meeting this goal, Anderson will support Whitaker in positioning Chicago as a global destination in an effort to achieve Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s goal of being one of the five leading U.S. destinations selected by international visitors and surpassing 55 million visitors annually by 2020.
In 2015, Chicago had record visitation of more than 52 million visitors. Since 2010, Chicago’s tourism industry has added more than 15,000 jobs, including an estimated 3,800 new jobs in 2015, now totaling over 140,000 Chicagoans serving visitors annually. Tourism to Chicago in 2015 generated $935.9 million in total tax revenue, $2.2 billion in revenue for Chicago’s hotels and $124.1 million in hotel tax revenue.
