Chicago visitors spent a record $21.5 billion in 2025 — 13% above the pre-pandemic peak — feeding 135,000 jobs and a hotel market that posted its best revenue year ever at $2.9 billion.
The 2025 ledger is a clean beat: $21.5 billion in visitor spending against the previous record of $20.9 billion, with the average overnight leisure party spending $1,342 per stay. Tourism supported 135,360 jobs — 2,108 added in the year — and returned $2.9 billion in state and local taxes.
Hotels are the bellwether: $2.89 billion in revenue, 69.2% occupancy and an ADR of $243.31, all records or near them, on 11.87 million room nights. The summer was the summit: 3.56 million room nights from June through August — above the pre-COVID record — and $949 million in revenue, with the single biggest weekend (July 19) moving 92,643 room nights on a Nike tournament and a BLACKPINK stadium show.
The midweek floor is McCormick Place: 2.6 million square feet of exhibition space, roughly three million attendees a year, 60% of guests from more than 250 miles away — high-spend travelers by definition. Choose Chicago booked 65 citywide conventions for future years, up from 49, and a new Tourism Improvement District from 2026 — a 1.5% assessment on downtown hotels over 100 rooms — adds $40 million a year to the sales machine.
For the traveler the pattern is the opportunity: convention weeks and festival weekends carry Manhattan-style rates, and the weeks between them carry some of the best five-star value in America. Chicago's spending record was built on domestic wallets — which means the deals survive precisely when the headlines say the city is full.
Our read: Chicago prices on its convention calendar, not its seasons — so read it like a trader. Book against the McCormick schedule: the week after a citywide moves out, the same five-star that charged $500 charges $280. Spend where the city's record revenue says quality concentrates — one architecture cruise, one tasting-menu dinner in Fulton Market, one blues club on the South Side — and keep the hotel splurge for a weekend when Lollapalooza or a stadium show makes the premium buy you the room everyone else wants.
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