Detroit is a better tourist destination than Chicago (Madison, Union: 2014, house)

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by PA Born

And Chicago is a much smaller transportation hub than NYC, with significantly lower intercity air, rail and bus passenger counts.

NYC can't beat us for the ever-glamorous freight rail traffic, though. Take that, New York! You only WISH you could be stuck at rail crossings as often as we are waiting for box cars and tanker cars to pass by.

[gomexico]

I haven't been to Buenos Aires, so I can't compare it with Rio de Janeiro ... with which I'm familiar (4 or 5 trips in 10 years). Rio is stunning and has a level of excitement in every day life that's contageous.

As for the Chicago comments: the guy clearly doesn't like Chicago, anymore. Fine. One man's opinion. But his comparisons with Detroit, or touting of Detroit as an alternative ... is a result of ignorance, of the current status of both cities.

Hey, they're opinions ... no less nor more important than the ones each of us posts. Only, he gets paid for writing!

[jwaiter]

Avid travelers are a tough crowd to slow down. Even though nationwide unemployment is hovering near 10% and the global economic downturn slashed jetsetters' budgets, some U.S. spots managed last year to lure tourists.
Forty-eight million people visited Orlando in 2009. That, combined with a 12% year-over-year increase in overseas visitors and a hotel occupancy rate of 60.7%, made it America's top spot for travelers.
Though domestic travel spending declined 9% in 2009, according to Mintel, a global market research firm, and statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce show that the foreign travel market also shrank, other cities also managed to draw millions of travelers. The number of foreign visitors to Miami and Philadelphia rose. And while occupancy rates at U.S. hotels declined overall last year with many at around 50% (down from 81% in 2008), New York managed to fill 77% of its rooms, helping it to No. 2 on our list. Rounding out the top five most-visited U.S. cities are Chicago; Anaheim (Orange County), Calif.; and Miami.


http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/28/tou...s_slide_2.html





Behind the Numbers
To compile our list of America's most-visited cities, we used 2009 statistics in the country's top 20 markets, as defined by Smith Travel Research. A market is defined as a geographic area composed of a Metropolitan Statistical Area, a group of Metropolitan Statistical Areas or a group of counties. A market must contain a sufficient number of hotels to permit further subdivision into submarket and price segments. Cities were judged on the number of foreign arrivals as reported by the Department of Commerce; occupancy rates as determined by Smith Travel Research; and the U.S. Travel Association's information on tourism's economic impact. The list was then narrowed by the total number of 2009 visitors, as provided by the cities' individual visitors and convention bureaus
It is arguable that warm-weather states draw the most visitors amid a recession. Cities in Florida and California took four of the spots among the top ten. Florida's travel spending hit $68.9 billion, and the tourism industry employs 759,500 people, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Travel Association. California saw travelers spend $96.2 billion and sustain 864,800 jobs.
San Diego and Anaheim/Orange County top California's entries, but two other cities--Los Angeles and San Francisco--just missed making the list, which shows just how popular a destination the state is as a whole. The state's top draw, Anaheim/Orange County, reeled in 42.7 million visitors, many of whom were presumably theme-park attendees.

[Vlajos]

Looks like 2013 will be a very good year for tourism in Chicago:

Hotel occupancy in Chicago hotels in March reached a new high not seen since 2006, according to data compiled by the city of Chicago and Choose Chicago, the city's tourism arm. The preliminary hotel occupancy rate for March 2013 is estimated at 73.5 percent, slightly besting the previous high of 73.2 percent in March 2006, said Meghan Risch, Vice President of Communications at Choose Chicago.


Read more: Chicago hotel occupancy rises in March - Tourism News - Crain's Chicago Business
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[urza216]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

NYC can't beat us for the ever-glamorous freight rail traffic, though. Take that, New York! You only WISH you could be stuck at rail crossings as often as we are waiting for box cars and tanker cars to pass by.

So true. We have more freight trains. Take that, New York!

[gomexico]

Where, in the city ... are people "stuck at rail crossings" waiting for freight trains?

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by gomexico

Where, in the city ... are people "stuck at rail crossings" waiting for freight trains?

Quite a few places on the South Side such as where many streets cross the Belt Line and the old EJ and E.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by gomexico

Where, in the city ... are people "stuck at rail crossings" waiting for freight trains?

Anywhere there's not a grade-separated crossing.

[jwaiter]

Oh yea, I always hit them while on the southwest side, I never thought about it but I've never hit one on the northwest side (been living here for 12 years). As a kid in Burbank, the freight trains went by about 150 yards from my bedroom window, could hear them when going to sleep, good memories.

[Brssplr]

Originally Posted by Chicagoist123

Looks like someone is trying to get publicity with some of these:

David Landsel: 10 Terribly Overrated Destinations (And Where To Travel Instead)

Detroit over Chicago to visit?! Not knocking Detroit but seriously. He makes some valid points but t the same time is way off on a lot of stuff.

Anyway, loses all credibility when he says Buenos Aires is overrated and instead go to underrated Rio de Janeiro. BA if anything is vastly underrated.

Worst list I have seen in a long time.

While I certainly agree that Detroit is a poor choice over Chicago, I see other poor choices in the list as well, namely Rio over Buenos Aires, and Houston over Austin. That being said, I do like that he talked up Portland, but not so much that it's to the expense of Vancouver.