Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Choose Chicago on Monday announced that visitors to the city in 2017 reached 55.2 million – a new record and 2.5 percent increase over the previous year. The increase of 1.4 million reaches the Mayor’s ambitious goal of 55 million visitors annually – two years early. Chicago’s tourism industry supported an estimated 146,500 jobs in 2017, a 17 percent increase since Mayor Emanuel took office. Prior to 2011, there were an estimated 124,400 tourism-related positions. The projected 55.2 million visitors to Chicago in 2017 generated an estimated additional 22,000 jobs. In 2010 Chicago saw approximately 39.25 million visitors. 2017’s performance is an approximately 40 percent increase. Last year marked another major increase in leisure visitors to the city as Chicago hotels reported an overall annual increase of 6.3 percent. This increase of the leisure segment was particularly strong in the key summer months as hotels reported an increase of 7.4 percent during the four-month period June through September – more than double the growth of the previous summer. Overall, Chicago hotel demand in terms of rooms occupied grew 3.3 percent in 2017. The positive momentum being generated is also helping fuel industry growth as Chicago opened five new hotels in 2017 with another eight new hotels currently scheduled to open in 2018.