Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Chicago set new tourism records in the first two months of 2018. The performance to date builds on last year’s record-setting tourism. In 2017 more than 55 million people visited Chicago, supporting more than 146,000 jobs that reached every part of Chicago. Chicago hotel performance for the first two months of 2018 saw record growth in demand and occupancy. For the combined months of January and February hotel demand, representing the number of room nights sold, was up 12.5 percent. The record volume helped push an overall occupancy increase of 7.3 percent. The number of people visiting Chicago for both business and leisure increased significantly in the first two months of 2018. There were two major conventions meeting in Chicago for the very first time as well as three large meetings convening at McCormick Place this year that were not part of the meetings line up in 2017. The increase in Leisure visitors comes on the heels of steady growth experienced in 2017 which saw an annual increase of 6.4 percent. The increase in demand and occupancy helped support an increase in hotel revenue per room of 11.3 percent.  This comes as Chicago has added six new hotels since February of last year adding 4.9 percent more rooms supply.