Chicago Scales Back International Marketing: In an effort to realign its marketing priorities for 2015, Choose Chicago has ended contracts with sales agents in source countries that were not producing desired results in 2013—Frankfurt, Germany; Sao Paulo; London; and Tokyo, where it will only work with agents on specific projects. It has also closed its office in Utrecht, Netherlands. The city will continue to conduct visits to and work with sales agents in the markets where it has closed offices, but will cut or reorganize its spending in each after arrival results revealed a decline from those markets in 2013. Choose Chicago is projecting around $1 million in savings from the move, and a reduction in size from 98 to 91 full-time employees for 2015; the reduction also comes from the closure of its official visitors center at the Chicago Water Works building. Among those released in the downsizing were: Bill Schmidt, tourism sales manager; Joleen Haran, assistant director of tourism; and John Curran, director of leisure and international MICE. Curran immediately secured a position as executive director of the Magnificent Mile Association, the famed shopping district along Chicago’s Michigan Avenue.
