The Choose Chicago Public Policy and Community Affairs department promotes the interests of the visitor industry and Choose Chicago partner organizations.
The department’s mission is to maintain support of the visitor industry as a public policy priority among government leaders. To that end, the Public Policy and Community Affairs department oversees Choose Chicago’s relations with the local, state, and federal levels of government; develops policy solutions and a civic consensus to meet our goals; develops external coalitions and political support for our initiatives; and communicates our missions, successes, and needs to key civic stakeholders.
The successes of the Public Policy and Community Affairs department include the historic McCormick Place work rule reforms that saw a resurgence in the convention center’s competitiveness, increasing local and state funding for Choose Chicago, fighting increases in hospitality taxes, and working with organizations across the nation to enact the Travel Promotion Act, which created the Corporation for Travel Promotion, a public-private partnership tasked with promoting tourism in the United States.
Why advocate?
Travel is one of the city’s leading industries. Every year, the travel industry proves its worth as an engine for economic growth and job creation. Every penny spent by a tourist flows through multiple layers of the economy, producing ripple effects found in not only hotel and transportation, but also entertainment, retail, restaurants, and many other sectors.
In 2018, the Chicago tourism industry represented:
- 57.6M domestic and overseas visitors
- $16B in direct spending
- $1.1B in tax revenue
- 150K+ jobs
Have questions? Contact the Public Policy and Community Affairs team
