Clout hires, consultants at Chicago’s tourism trough

From the Chicago Sun-Times

By: Chris Fusco

Two years ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel struck a deal with the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau with the aim of attracting 50 million visitors a year to the city by 2020.

The mayor eliminated City Hall’s tourism office, transferring many of its duties to the private, not-for-profit convention bureau, whose board was chaired at the time by Bruce Rauner, now the Republican candidate for governor. The combined tourism operation, renamed Choose Chicago, gets about $8 million a year from the city under the arrangement — part of $28.4 million in city and state tax money in its 2013-14 budget.

Officials say the retooled tourism effort has been a success, helping boost the number of people who visited Chicago last year to 48.5 million — up 11 percent from 2011.

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