On May 8, Gov. Bruce Rauner kicked off National Travel and Tourism Week by releasing domestic Illinois tourism figures that show robust growth in visitor spending in 2016.
The Illinois Office of Tourism announced that in the first quarter of 2017, there has been a seven percent increase in tourism revenue in Chicago and a four percent revenue increase downstate. Visitors to Illinois invested $35 billion in the state’s economy in 2016. In the last two years, Illinois has created 20,000 tourism-related jobs.