Agents on the Spot: Chicago

To showcase United Airlines’ new Boeing 777 service to Chicago, United Vacations took nine Going Places agents to the “Windy City”. The agents had all been to the US before but never to Chicago. They stayed for three nights and during that time, took in the shops and the scenery, went on a city tour and visited the famed Sears and John Hancock Towers. We asked three agents for their impressions before and after the trip.

Before: I had been to the States but not to Chicago. I imagined it would be very busy and bustling – rather like the US you see on the television programmes like ER. We sell a fair number of short breaks to the US but usually people think of New York for that kind of thing, and never having been to Chicago, I wasn’t really in a position to push it forward. I suppose the main idea people have of Chicago if the image of the “Windy City” but living in Cornwall that wouldn’t really be a big problem for my clients.

After: I was very impressed. The hotels are of an excellent class, travelling around is really easy and there are plenty of things to see and do. It is a very slick place where the welcome is genuinely warm and the service you get everywhere is really good. I was surprised by just how flat the whole area was. The views from the top of the towers are magnificent – you can see for miles, across four states. It is incredible and really gives you an appreciation of the vastness of the US. I am certainly selling it more now and I’d pay to go back myself. It really is an excellent short-break or stopover destination.

Before: I hadn’t been to Chicago before and thought that it would be really cold which was a bit off-putting. We sell a lot of shopping breaks – to New York, Boston and Washington – and although I had thought of Chicago as an alternative I rarely sold it because I really didn’t know what was there. I had studied the brochures and knew it was competitively priced for short breaks and more easily available than the other cities. But because I didn’t personally know the atmosphere and amenities of the city, I found it hard to sell to clients.

After: It was cold and a bit snowy during our visit but that didn’t detract from the enjoyment at all. Many of the most interesting things to do are inside so the weather doesn’t matter much and getting around by public transport is really straightforward and comfortable. We visited the Woodfield Shopping Mall which is one of the biggest and it is really amazing. We did a lot of bargain shopping ourselves – jeans, trainers, make-up and perfume are all a lot cheaper than at home and I can definitely recommend it for shopping breaks now. In many ways it’s better than New York – it’s easier to get around, it’s cheaper and you feel a lot safer.

Before: We were selling a lot of holidays to Florida and a fair number of Christmas shopping and theatre breaks. New York and Boston were the favourites but as Chicago isn’t so well known as a holiday destination or for a short break I didn’t sell it very often. It was somewhere I wanted to go to myself, I thought it would be an interesting place, but I thought of it more as a business destination than anything else. I didn’t recommend it as a short-break destination because I thought it was a lot further away than Boston and New York and that the journey would put people off.

After: The first surprise was the flying time, 7hrs, which was a lot less than I had thought and it wasn’t a problem in the B777 which has plenty of space and good leg room. The second surprise was the size of Lake Michigan. I had no idea how huge it was – actually it is more like being by a sea than a lake – there are beaches and superb coastal scenery and the water goes on for miles. I have always really thought of the US as Florida – fast, action-packed and exciting. Chicago is quite a different thing. It’s more easy-going and tourism doesn’t dominate everything you see. It’s not constantly trying to impress you and somehow as a result it feels more authentic.