It was a record-breaking summer for hotels in Chicago.
Choose Chicago data shows from June through August, hotels in the Central Business District filled 3.56 million room nights, a 4.3% gain over 2024 and surpassing the previous record set in the summer of 2019.
Revenue generated from these bookings totaled $949 million, also an all-time record.
"We had really strong summer of leisure travel," says Choose Chicago's Director of Corporate Communications, Isaac Reichman, "we had major festivals, major concerts and all those incredible things that everyone knows happens in Chicago."
Choose Chicago says the weekend of July 19 was the busiest for hotels with more than 92,600 rooms filled.
Over that weekend, Chicago hosted the NIKE Tournament of Champions at McCormick Place and BLACKPINK at Soldier Field.
Reichman adds Chicago’s spectacular summer also defied national trends, as the global tourism industry continues to face economic and geopolitical challenges.
And, he says this is only the beginning.
"We are pretty confident that this momentum is going to continue into the fall," Reichman says, "preliminary numbers from September are really strong."