Tourists Like Us! They Really, Really Like Us!

By Marcus Gilmer in Miscellaneous on Jun 9, 2009 4:40PM

According to statistics from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, the amount of money tourists spent in the state was up in 2008 by nearly a billion dollars ($883 million, to be exact) for a grand total of $30.8 billion. Overall, the state also saw a 21-percent increase in visitors from overseas (1.4 million overall). While the number of tourists hitting our fair city declined by 2.1 percent over 2007's record-setting year (a total of 44.21 million) but the good news (besides the fact we're Johnny Depp's favorite U.S. city) is that they spent a little bit more time here than they did in 2007. [Crain's]