Be on the lookout this week for confused strangers with exotic accents and really good luggage.
They might be among the 6,000 international travel professionals in Chicago for that industry’s annual convention, called, oddly enough, the Pow Wow.
Chicagoans are helpful by nature. But if a couple of these world travelers ask you for directions to, say, Buckingham Fountain, drop everything and escort them yourself. Or, at least, keep smiling and draw them a good map.
Pow Wow could do more to boost Chicago’s international reputation than any of the national political conventions, international soccer tournaments and Bulls basketball championships. They may look like ordinary conventioneers, with name tags and shopping bags, but these are the people who advise other people about where to go on vacation. Because vacationers tend to spend oodles of money, the world’s major cities are competing as never before to be thought of as prime tourist destinations.
Long the nation’s No. 1 site for business conventions, Chicago and Illinois are relative newcomers to the leisure travel market. Yet, as word spreads about our wide-open lakefront, peerless architecture, cultural gems, ethnic restaurants and such, the numbers have been building. Last year Illinois overtook Wisconsin as the Midwest’s top vacation draw, with trips to Chicago accounting for half the state’s 50.7 million visits. This has generated billions of dollars worth of economic activity and tax revenues. And jobs–one of every 10 workers in Illinois now has some connection to the tourism industry.
Not bad for a place that used to be known around the world for hog butchery, ghost voters and guys in fedoras who went rat-a-tat-tat.
So welcome to Chicago, travel professionals. Visit the Water Tower. Ride the “L.” Try the kielbasa. Listen to the blues. Then tell them about us back home.
