Guide to Chicago Historic Hotels
Chicago is a world-class city and a top destination for tourists. Granted, we’re biased, but Condé Nast Traveler readers voted Chicago as the “Best Big City in the U.S. in 2025. In fact, Chicago has now won this award 9 years in a row!!
Approximately 57 million tourists visit Chicago annually. They enjoy Chicago’s world-class architecture, incredible parks and lakefront, renowned museums and institutions, outstanding theaters and vibrant restaurants and neighborhoods. Authenticity is the essence of what connects them all.
www.ChicagoHistoricHotels.org website is live!
After many years of planning, Preservation Chicago has successfully launched www.ChicagoHistoricHotels.org. Chicago Historic Hotels: Embrace Authenticity is an initiative of Preservation Chicago. Preservation Chicago is a historic preservation advocacy nonprofit that harnesses the power of preservation to create healthy, dynamic, and vibrant communities, and over our 25-year history, we’ve directly advocated for many of the glorious hotels featured on this site. It’s shocking to realize that so many beloved architectural treasures were recently threatened with demolition!
The goal of this Chicago Historic Hotels initiative is to create a content-rich and visually-captivating website focused on celebrating Chicago’s unique and authentic historic hotels and creative adaptive reuse hotels in historic buildings. This website seeks to provide high-quality, original content focused on each hotel’s unique story, glorious physical spaces, and captured by outstanding architectural photography. This allows heritage tourists to Chicago to more easily find and select a hotel based on unique value propositions, including quality, authenticity, uniqueness, and historic interest.
There are over 600 hotels in Chicago which cater to a wide variety of visitors to Chicago. While business travelers many prefer business or conference hotels, many heritage tourists to Chicago seek high-quality, authentic experience in a historic hotel. Hotel rooms may be commodities to the hospitality industry, but they are “home sweet home” to a Chicago heritage tourist for a few days.
The hotel experience is so important to a tourist’s experience, yet the mainstream hotel booking sites focus on location and price miss some of the most important differentiation factors that matter most to a tourist seeking an authentic Chicago hotel experience; uniqueness, historic richness, captivating “origin story”, and proximity to other tourist destinations.
All of the hotels that appear on www.ChicagoHistoricHotels.org site are carefully curated only feature historic and adaptive reuse hotels. For historic hotel owners and operators, this site will allow them to break out of the price-only commodity model and compete in a more selective marketplace. For heritage tourists, the carefully curated, organized, and recommended will allow them to easily find their prefered hotel and book with confidence. Additionally, when a hotel stay is reserved after clicking through our site through to our affiliate partners, it generates a small referral fee which helps support our ongoing preservation advocacy efforts. And if you value our work, you can make a tax-deductible donation directly to Preservation Chicago.
Chicago Rises to Nearly 57 million Visitors in 2025, Despite Drop in International Tourism
“Navigating a sharp decline in international travel to the U.S. and other headwinds, Chicago saw an increase in tourism last year, with 56.8 million visitors spending a record $21.5 billion in the Windy City, according to data released Thursday by Choose Chicago.
“The city welcomed nearly 1.5 million more visitors than in 2024 as it continues to climb back toward pre-pandemic levels, with domestic tourism up across the board.
“Reflective of those industrywide trends, there were 1.9 million international visitors to Chicago last year, an 8% decline, according to Choose Chicago, the city’s official destination marketing organization. In 2024, Chicago topped 2 million international visitors for the first time in the post-pandemic travel landscape.
“Chicago hotel revenue hit $2.9 billion in 2025, up from $2.8 billion the previous year, according to Choose Chicago data. Hotel occupancy was at 69.1% for the year, up 1.5% over 2024.
“The biggest area of growth for Chicago tourism in 2025 was the 40.7 million domestic leisure visitors, up 4.8% year-over-year, according to Choose Chicago. Millennials represented the largest segment of that category, accounting for 37% of domestic leisure travelers.
“Top tourism activities included dining, shopping, sightseeing and visiting museums or art exhibits, with tourism spending at a record $21.5 billion last year, up 2.7%, according to Choose Chicago.
“Launched in 2012 under then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Choose Chicago initially set a goal of 55 million visitors a year by 2020, touting tourism as an economic boon and job creator.
“Hoping to increase international visitation, Choose Chicago announced a new partnership Thursday with Brand USA to create a video chronicling the city’s history as the birthplace of the skyscraper for its new website, AmericaTheBeautiful.com.”
Tourism In Chicago Bounced Back In 2024 With 55 Million Visitors, $20 Billion In Spending
“Chicago welcomed 55.3 million visitors last year, and another strong year is expected, the city’s tourism arm announced Thursday at its annual meeting at the Nederlander Theatre.
“Choose Chicago said last year’s visitor total represented a 6.5 percent increase year over year, with international tourism surpassing 2 million visitors for the first time since 2019.
“The rise in tourism was attributed to the city hosting several large special events and conventions, such as the Democratic National Convention, Sundance Chicago, Lollapalooza and the second Downtown NASCAR race. Combined tourism spending is estimated to have reached $20.6 billion last year, Mayor Brandon Johnson said Thursday.
“Other achievements cited by Choose Chicago include an eighth consecutive year of Chicago being named “Best Big City in the U.S.” by Condé Nast Traveler’s Readers’ Choice Awards and the newly announced extension of the National Restaurant Association Show through 2032.
“The organization reported helping visitors book 2.65 million hotel rooms in 2024. Leaders also said the group secured 49 citywide conventions, including the 2026 NAACP National Convention and the 2028 Grand Conclave of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.” (Mercado, Block Club Chicago, 5/19/25)
Read the full story at Block Club Chicago: Tourism In Chicago Bounced Back In 2024 With 55 Million Visitors, $20 Billion In Spending; The city drew more than 2 million international visitors for the first time since 2019, Choose Chicago officials said, Melody Mercado, Block Club Chicago, 5/19/25