Chicago
By CHARLES B. CLEVELAND
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THE CHICAGO Convention Bureau has a suite of offices on the top floor of a building on South Michigan Boulevard. Outside the window is Grant Park and the lakefront, possibly the best vantage point from which to survey the positive side of the Windy City. Not far away is the Art Institute and the Buckingham Fountain which served as a backdrop for the visit a few years ago of the Queen of England. Nearby is the Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, and Shedd Aquarium.
City landmarks
There are other attractions: Wrigley
Field, Comiskey Park, Soldiers' Field,
Arlington and Sportsman's Parks. A
taxi ride away is Rush Street, or Old
Town, and other neighborhoods for
night life. For shoppers. State Street
and Marshall Field's are symbols of the
Midwest's biggest city; or, should you
prefer, there is Boul Mich — Chicago's
new downtown stretching northward
from the Wrigley Building.
These are city landmarks. They are also big business because they are part of the package that last year brought seven-and-one-half million visitors to Chicago and better than one in every six dollars of revenue into the area.
In pure numbers, visitors account for one billion dollars income. By rule of thumb that quadruples in indirect benefits, and supports 100,000 jobs. On a national scale it is a $71 billion business and in one man's opinion (and he's far from alone), it will double in the next 20 years and be second only to food as the nation's biggest industry.
The man with the optimistic outlook is Frank C. Sain, one-time engineer, Navy veteran and businessman who now is executive director of the Convention Bureau, a job he has held for the past four years. For Chicago tourism has always been big business. But not many years ago, it had relatively few competitors: New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, possibly Miami. A rundown of cities which have hosted the national conventions for Democrats and Republicans shows that a few cities have dominated the field.
Historically, Chicago has been a leader in tourism mainly because it is centrally located and it can muster the facilities needed for almost any sized convention. It has also been a convenient attraction for visitors throughout the midwest. It moved with the times from the railroad hub of the nation to the airlines crossroads of the world.
But competition has now added new challenges. And the stakes are high, Aside from tourists (classified as people traveling more than 100 miles) there are more than 4,500 trade shows, 9,000 conventions and a half million corporate meetings. (In the trade a corporate meeting involves from 10 to 100 executives; a trade show is an exhibit of merchandise; a convention is an industry or association get-together for business or professional conferences.) The economics of the business become apparent from average statistics: About three in every ten visitors is a conventioneer who stays just under three days in town and spends $189 in the process.
Government and conventions
Today the convention business
breaks down into three basic categories:
business cities, sun-and-fun, and exotic
lands (Puerto Rico, Hawaii, etc).
Congress(and the Internal Revenue
Service) are currently looking more
critically at these business expenses and
worrying businessmen at the glamorous
locations.
But the biggest change has come in the convention bureaus themselves. Once they were almost exclusively private operations, financed either by tourism or business. In the late 60's however, government stepped in and' today many (maybe most) of the more successful operations are publicly financed. Chicago (and Illinois) were among the first. The state legislature authorized a city hole! tax (so much per room), with the money earmarked for boosterism, Chicago raises about $l million a year from the tax (all, in theory from outsiders), which is the major source of money to finance efforts to bring more visitors to the city. Similar efforts are now being made in Springfield and other Illinois cities.
Chicago in forefront
According to its publicists, Chicago
has remained in the forefront of the
visitor derby because of McCormick
Place. Built in the 60's and rebuilt after a
major fire, the multi-purpose structure
can house a half-dozen major shows at
one time. In Sain's opinion Chicago
would probably have dropped by the
wayside as a major convention center
without McCormick Place.
He also feels Chicago has kept in the lead through diversification. Under the Bureau's umbrella are not only the traditional downtown facilities, but a cluster of hotels and motels around O'Hare airport and, for the more suburban-minded, a new Lincolnshire resort, Oakbrook or even the Playboy complex.
Sain also bristles at what he considers a slur on his business. Chicago doesn't have to have gambling, "friendly" young ladies and similar attractions to keep its leadership in the visitor field. As matter of fact, he believes the reputation of being wide open can actually depress a city's convention business, If right, another of the great legends American folklore has died. ž
30/ July 1976/ Illinois Issues