2002 Illinois Tourism FactSheets

Here are some facts about the state’s tourism industry in 2002:

Illinois travel and tourism industry contributed a total of $22 billion to the Illinois economy in 2002.

Travelers spent more than $60 million dollars every day on Illinois businesses.

The travel and tourism industry employed 302,600 people in Illinois. They earned almost $7.7 billion.

On average, every $70,559 spent in Illinois by travelers generated one job.

Travel spending generated almost $1.1 billion in tax revenues for the state treasury and over $536 million for local governments. Without these travel-generated tax revenues, the tax burden of a typical family of four would need to increase by approximately $525 annually.

To fully communicate the industry’s true benefit to Illinois, we also need to look at tourism’s qualitative attributes such as improving Illinoisans’ quality of life by expanding residents’ amenity base and accelerating all forms of economic development.

In 2002, Illinois welcomed 83.3 million domestic visitors, 27.8 million for business and 55.5 million for leisure purposes.

In 2002, Illinois hosted 1,071,000 overseas visitors, making it the 6th most popular U.S. state for overseas visitors. Chicago remained the 9th most popular U.S. city for overseas visitors.

The top six states providing visitors to Illinois were: Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, California and Michigan. The top markets for international visitors (excluding Mexico) to Illinois were Canada, United Kingdom, Japan and Germany.

Chicago is the nation’s top city for business travel. Nationally, business travel was responsible for almost 25% of all travel but constituted 36% of all Illinois travel.

On average, visitors to Illinois spent $112 per person per day. Leisure visitors spent $89 per person per day, and business visitors spent $153.

The primary activities of leisure travelers to Illinois included dining, shopping, sightseeing, entertainment, visiting a museum/art exhibit and nightlife.

The average age of Illinois visitors was 42, the majority were married, and had an annual household income of $70,000.

Hotel-motel tax revenues for FY 03 (July 1, 2002 – June 30, 2003) were $151,898,915.

Consumer inquiries for FY 03 (July 1, 2002 – June 30, 2003) were almost 1.5 million.

More than half of the state’s tourism budget is awarded in grants to local tourism organizations.