Hotel bookings connected to events at McCormick Place and Navy Pier have slipped from a year ago, as the slowing U.S. economy takes its toll visitors’ spending habits.Total room nights — the cumulative total of nights each visitor stays — were down 3% from January through the end of the May to 1.23 million from 1.27 million in the same period a year ago. Tourism experts attributed the fall off to visitors shortening their stays for trips to meetings and conventions.
“We’re starting to see some weakness in the hotel economy,” Tim Roby, president of the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau, said Tuesday at the board meeting for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which operates McCormick Place and Navy Pier.
Nevertheless, the bureau doesn’t expect the slowdown to last. The total room nights booked for 2009 is already at 1.32 million. That figure is expected to increase as 2009 draws closer.
“We are solid for 2009 and the momentum is extremely healthy,” said Mark Theis, the bureau’s executive vice-president.
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