Tourism Study and Market Assessment Services

The Vendor is required to provide consulting firms to complete a comprehensive tourism market assessment and strategic development study.
- The study should identify market opportunities, destination development priorities, investment strategies, and implementation actions that support long-term tourism growth and community goals.
- Current tourism landscape, identify growth opportunities, and develop an actionable tourism development strategy that strengthens city position as a premier regional destination over the next five to ten years.
- This study is to evaluate Joliet’s current tourism landscape, identify opportunities for growth, and develop actionable strategic development plans.
- Tourism Asset & Visitor Experience Assessment
• Conduct a comprehensive inventory and assessment of tourism assets, visitor-serving amenities, lodging inventory, entertainment venues, cultural resources, recreational assets, and tourism-supportive infrastructure.
• Evaluate the visitor experience, including accessibility, wayfinding, parking, transportation connections, downtown walkability, visitor information services, and connectivity between key destinations.
• Identify strengths, gaps, barriers, and opportunities to enhance city overall visitor experience and competitiveness as a destination.
- Market analysis
• Assess regional, state, and national tourism and event trends with direct relevance to the city competitive position.
• Identify visitor demand drivers, target audiences, and emerging market opportunities that align with city assets and future vision.
• Evaluate gaps in current tourism, sports, entertainment, and cultural facility offerings within city.
• Evaluate existing visitor origin markets and visitation patterns using available data sources (e.g., ticketing, hotel stays, gaming, events, mobility data where available) to identify where visitors are coming from, how frequently they visit, and key geographic feeder markets.
- Competitive & comparative analysis
• Benchmark city against peer and aspirational destinations of similar scale, market profile, and development trajectory.
• Identify key differentiators, strengths, and opportunities for positioning city as a leading regional destination.
• Assess how city existing assets, such as its historic downtown, riverfront, transportation access, and entertainment venues, compared to competitors.
- Strategic development
• Identify and prioritize key target market segments and visitor origin markets including regional day-trip and weekend visitors, casino and entertainment travelers, sports tourism participants, cultural and heritage tourists, event and festival attendees, outdoor recreation users, group and motor coach tours, business and meeting travelers, and visitors connected to local educational institutions, and align destination positioning and investment priorities with these findings.
• Identify strategic pillars and focus areas that will guide capital investment, experience development, and partnership strategies over the next 5-10 years.
• Recommend destination positioning and brand-aligned strategies that strengthen city identity and competitiveness.
• Develop a destination positioning framework that identifies city competitive identity, key differentiators, target audiences, and tourism value proposition.
• Outline a strategic roadmap connecting market insights, priority projects, and organizational capabilities to actionable next steps.
• Identify cross-sector collaboration opportunities with public, private, nonprofit, and regional partners to maximize impact.
• Assess opportunities to leverage route 66 tourism, regional tourism partnerships, and state or national tourism initiatives to increase visitation and destination awareness.
• Assess policy, zoning, and regulatory considerations that may support or hinder long-term tourism development and recommend strategic adjustments.
• Propose performance indicators and measurement approaches to track progress and ensure accountability.