[don_neufeld]

Chicago has over 50 millions tourists per year and rising.

https://cdn.choosechicago.com/uploads/2025/07/Chicago-Touris...

https://abc7chicago.com/post/chicago-sees-record-breaking-ho...

Is that a lot?

Well, Rome - which people the world over would consider a “tourist destination” only has 35M tourists per year.

https://hotelagio.com/rome-tourism-statistics/

Even Paris is less, around 47M

https://parisplaybook.com/paris-tourism-statistics/

[themafia]

Those are overall visitations. There's no indication that they're vacationing or tourists. Does Chicago have more global business interests than Rome?

My Mother went to Chicago every year for Emergency Room training. Was she a tourist? Or was she there because Chicago, for all it's problems, has one of the most competent and practiced set of ER doctors in the entire country?

[don_neufeld]

“Does Chicago have more global business interests than Rome?”

Given that the GDP of the Chicago area is ~5x the GDP of Rome, I suspect the answer is YES!

Chicago: ~900B USD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_metropolitan_area

Rome: ~190B USD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_metropolitan_area

If you were to take exports as a good proxy for “global business interests”, then the USTR would show you that Chicago exports 57.9B in goods, making Chicago’s exports almost 1/3 of Rome’s entire GDP.

https://ustr.gov/map/state-benefits/il

[arianvanp]

Does it really matter? Both tourism and business fall under the same ESTA Visa Waiver programme. In both cases you have people visiting without any visa but just an online application at cpb. I dont even think they stamp passports anymore during entry in the US. It's all digital now.