CHICAGO: Hoping to up its profile with convention planners, the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau has hired PR veteran Bill Utter as its new VP of marketing and communications.
CHICAGO: Hoping to up its profile with convention planners, the
Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau has hired PR veteran Bill Utter as
its new VP of marketing and communications.
Utter, the former director of communications for Chicago mayor Richard
Daley, said that while he will focus PR efforts on the
convention/meetings market, he will not forsake the local Chicago
audience.
Promoting activities at the city’s Navy Pier and McCormick Place
convention complex is the bureau’s major function, but Utter also wants
to increase awareness of the importance of tourism to the local economy.
He also plans to work more closely with local restaurants and hotels -
which makes sense, given that the tourism bureau’s 1,500 members come
mainly from the hospitality industry.
According to Utter, past efforts have been fragmented among state, city
and local organizations. Now, driven by competition from emerging
convention centers such as Orlando, ’Everyone’s working together in a
way they haven’t before,’ he said.
Utter will also handle local and national advertising, as well as
oversee publications and research. The bureau works with an ad agency,
Gams Chicago, but has not worked with a PR firm.
