More Chicago tourism jobs may soon be created as the city invests in a new winter tourism campaign, which includes the launch of a new tourism Web site.

The City of Chicago recently announced the launch of the new campaign. The Web site will showcase Chicago to a worldwide audience and add a new tool to help support tourism. During 2007, Chicago’s tourism industry attracted 46 million business and leisure travelers who added more than $11.5 billion to the economy and helped create 132,000 new tourism jobs.

“Chicago’s convention and tourism industry is among our city’s most important,” Mayor Richard M. Daly said in a press release. “With that in mind today, we’re announcing a great new website - ExploreChicago.org - that will increase our visibility around the world and make it easier for visitors and residents alike to take advantage of the great things our city has to offer. It is another step in our ongoing effort to kick start Chicago’s economic recovery.”

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A new interest in visiting Chicago and surrounding cities could create new Chicago tourism jobs.

The Quad Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau recently hired Ruf Strategic Solutions to create a report on people interested in visiting the Quad Cities, which include Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, and Moline, East Moline and Rock Island, Ill. The results showed that 1 million potential tourists - including 300,000 in the Chicago area - would be interested in visiting, according to an article by MarketWatch.

“We want to understand the people who travel to the Quad Cities so we can market more effectively to them and find even more visitors like them,” Charlotte Morrison, vice president of marketing and communications, said in the article. “Ruf helped us understand the travel habits of our tourists: how long they stay here, their level of disposable income and what activities they enjoy while on vacation.”

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