Partner Insights & Updates: December 2024

Thank You to our Partners

Choose Chicago team members celebrate Chicago’s 8th consecutive Best Big City in the U.S. win

Dear Partners,

As we close out 2024, we want to share a brief reflection on our collective accomplishments that have amounted to an extraordinary year for Chicago. From hosting major global events to record-breaking milestones, this year has shown us what’s possible when we work together with purpose and pride.

2024 was a pivotal year for our city—a year full of both opportunities and challenges. We could not have successfully met those challenges head-on without our incredible network of partners.

While it would be impossible to share everything that we accomplished this year in a single communication, this newsletter provides an overview of some of our biggest achievements across our departments. These accomplishments are a testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone in Chicago’s tourism, hospitality, and events community.

Thank you for your partnership, your passion, and your shared belief in this city. Here’s to continued success in the year ahead!

Sincerely,

The Choose Chicago Team

Partnerships Updates

Our partnerships are critical to our ability to attract leisure travelers and events to Chicago. We are thrilled to have onboarded a record number of diverse-owned partners in 2024.

Below is a summary of the incredibly powerful network you are a part of as a Choose Chicago partner.

Thanks so much to all the partners who participated in our 2024 Student Partner Shadow Day! Learn more about our Student Partnership program here.

Sales Updates

A key tactic for driving future business at destination marketing organizations like Choose Chicago is familiarization trips, or “FAMs” as we like to call them. A FAM is typically built around a major event (think NASCAR Street Race Weekend or the Democratic National Convention) and showcases the destination’s infrastructure, attractions, venues, accommodations, and general ability to host international gatherings.

The four major FAMs hosted by the Sales team in 2024 will result in multiple new events at our venues and tens of thousands of additional hotel room nights in the coming years.

Marketing Updates

As the official destination marketing organization for the city of Chicago, we are tasked with spreading awareness of all our city has to offer to potential travelers locally, regionally, nationally, and globally.

Some of the local artists we’ve partnered with this year include Katie Lukes, Alyssa Low, and sentrock (Joseph Anthony Perez).

This spring, the Neighborhood Strategy team launched a new travel series titled “The 77: A City of Neighborhoods” earlier this year highlighting five culturally and geographically diverse Chicago communities. And, just this fall, the series was honored with two Emmy awards!

Choose Chicago and Skalawag Productions team members with their Emmy awards

The Global Development team has had a super productive year hosting familiarization trips (FAMs) here in Chicago and participating in travel tradeshows and conferences around the world. The below figures reflect the breadth of the team’s efforts to drive future international inbound visitation to our destination in the coming years.

Interested in getting your business in front of international travel planners? Click here to learn how you can get involved in America’s premier international inbound travel tradeshow, IPW, June 14 – 18, 2025.

65 global influencers, media, DJs and our global reps celebrate on the Choose Chicago bus in the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival Parade as part of the Global Holiday Influencer & Media Mega Tour

EDI & Choose Chicago Foundation Updates

The Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) team had a busy and productive year. Some key accomplishments include the completion of the EDI scorecard, which evaluated key areas including our diverse spending, workforce development, diverse partner classifications, and staff demographics; formalization of our Business Diversity Policy to reinforce best practices with a two-year roadmap for implementation; our summer internship program, which hosted three Chicago Public School interns across Marketing, Client Services, and Sales departments; and expanding the team to include an additional part-time coordinator position.