"There are inquiries that are coming in from meeting
planners that are saying, 'Hey, I'm reading about what's taken place in your
city. Is your city safe?'" Welsh said. His organization received five to
six such calls in the last few weeks, at this point seeking information, not
cancellations, he said at the meeting reports the Chicago Trib.
Later in the afternoon he downplayed the inquiries, saying
the calls came over a period of six weeks and "if anything, it's
dissipating a little bit. It's not omnipresent; it's a bit of a nuisance."
Chicago's extensive efforts to reinvigorate its convention
and tourism industries could be damaged unless the city quickly defuses the
violent crime wave that has exploded in its neighborhoods and nicked the
downtown, the city's top convention and tourism official said Wednesday.
"We hope this sunsets quickly because all the good work
we're doing regionally, nationally and internationally, if this is not
contained in a reasonable period of time, it will have an impact," Don
Welsh, president and chief executive of Choose Chicago, said in a morning meeting
withthe Chicago Tribune'seditorial board.
News reports of several unprovoked attacks by youths in the
Michigan Avenue corridor and of the surge in homicides in some impoverished
Chicago neighborhoods are triggering concerned calls to Choose Chicago, the
newly restructured not-for-profit agency that combines the city's convention
bureau and its office of tourism and culture. The issue has gained national
attention in The New York Times and other media...
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