Downtown Chicago is a tourist mecca. But,
beyond its renowned center city, Chicago
boasts a melange of ethnic neighborhoods
that can link a person to their homeland
or awaken wanderlust in armchair travelers. Like
the world it represents, Chicago is a very big,
sometimes intimidating place. What the city needs
is a way to show off its diversity by extending warm
welcomes to its lesser-known areas while helping
distribute the economic benefits of tourism.
In 1990, Juana Guzman rode the “L” to work in Chicago’s
bustling business district. Every day she’d see the Sears
Tower and Lake Shore Drive and all the architecture and activity
that make Chicago one of the world’s most exciting cities.
It was a city Juana loved and knew well. But she also knew that
just off the usual traffic corridors, across the highway, or
over the railroad tracks were more than 70 other neighborhoods
where immigrants from around the world and their descendants
had kept alive a kaleidoscope of
ethnic rituals and cultural traditions that make Chicago even
more fascinating. Juana Guzman wanted to help others get to know
these “other” Chicagos.
As then-director of Community Cultural Development for the city’s
Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), Guzman spoke regularly
with representatives of scores of small, nonprofit arts and cultural
organizations scattered throughout the city’s
ethnic centers. Their shared goals of preserving and perpetuating
these unique cultural heritages were often hampered by limited
audiences and small budgets. Guzman and her colleagues recognized
the importance of sharing the cultural riches of these neighborhoods
in order to broaden views and bridge gaps. Yet most tourists,
and many Chicagoans, in fact, were either unaware of these communities
or apprehensive about venturing beyond the commonly toured areas.
Consensus among the arts organizations was that all the lesser-known neighborhoods in Chicago deserved the same promotional
treatment accorded to the more famed areas. “They wanted
to find
ways to become viable cultural attractions in and of themselves,” says Guzman.
“There is no denying the impact
of arts and
culture on a local economy,” says Guzman. “
The arts employ thousands of people, attract
new businesses, revitalize neighborhoods, and
draw tourists.” — Juana Guzman
What Happened Next
In 1991, DCA secured a $150,000 National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA) grant that paid for promotional brochures, collaborative
exhibition projects, and computer and website training for the
city’s ethnic arts and cultural organizations. In 1994,
as an extension of DCA’s outreach efforts, Guzman organized
van tours of ethnic neighborhoods. “In the beginning,
I was driving the van and giving the tour, and it wasn’t
easy,” explains Guzman,
who took a tour out once a month to
one of five neighborhoods, explaining
the community’s ethnic roots, cultural
traditions, and architectural evolution.
Within a year, demand grew for the popular tours. “I decided
that if I could market the tours to conferences scheduling in
Chicago a year out,” says Guzman, “I could prepay
for a full busload of tourists and afford to bring in another
guide.” That plan worked well and in the fall of 1995 Guzman
had 20 prepaid groups for her neighborhood tours. The tours’ success
was apparent not only to Guzman but
also to DCA Commissioner, Lois Weisberg. “She gave me the
green light to pursue a full-fledged tour program and helped
me apply for a grant,” Guzman says.
In 1997, Guzman spearheaded
the complicated effort of coordinating about 25 cultural partners
in a collaborative effort to take
visitors into the neighborhoods to see, hear, smell, and taste
the whole experience. This initiative—Chicago Neighborhood
Tours (CNT)—managed by the Office of Tourism within the
DCA, was funded with a $200,000 three-year grant from Sears,
Roebuck & Co., and matching city funds. An outgrowth of the
CNT, the Chicago Neighborhoods Gift Shops project, was established
that same year with grants totaling $80,000 from NEA and the
Nathan Cummings Foundation. Selling ethnically specific and authentic,
handcrafted merchandise, the shops provide alternative sources
of income for community-based arts organizations.
The tours themselves come under two headings: “Neighborhood” and “Special.” During
Neighborhood Tours, local guides relate the founding and growth
of communities like Swedish Andersonville, German Lincoln Square,
Puerto Rican Humboldt Park, or the architecturally rich Prairie
Avenue Historic District. There are nine neighborhood tours scheduled
on
a rotating basis on Saturdays throughout the year.
Special Tours present an amalgam of information about a culture
and its history in the city, and they are often tied into neighborhood
events. Presented by community historians who have researched
their
subjects thoroughly, these are longer,
more expensive, and more in-depth than the regular tours. Special
Tours include
The Great Chicago Fire, Threads of Ireland, A Jewish Legacy,
Gay and Lesbian History, and the most popular tour for international
visitors, Roots of Chicago Blues and Gospel. During a five-hour
Special Tour, guests are taken on a combination driving-walking
tour of the district, view an artistic performance or exhibit,
and have lunch
at any one of a number of participating restaurants that serve
traditional cuisines from around the globe.
All CNT tours can be prepurchased individually or by groups
of 35 or more. To boost group sales, CNT is marketing the tours
to senior citizen organizations, schools, corporations, and leisure
travel planners.
Making the Most of Opportunities
Collaborate: “Cultural
tourism through CNT is done collaboratively,” says
Guzman. “City agencies become partners with each other
and with community-based cultural centers, redevelopment corporations,
chambers of commerce, local businesses, and neighborhood residents.” The
community arts organizations do not have
the time or budgets to market themselves as well as CNT can through
its colorful and artistic brochures, website, press
coverage, and paid advertisements. Together the partners accomplish
what
no one entity could.
Find the Fit Between the Community and Tourism: The point of
CNT is to promote the cultural heritage of the communities
it serves. The trick is to do it without being invasive or inappropriate. “We
never bypass the local communities or try to speak for them.
They are always, from the inception of the tour on, included
in the decision-making process regarding script content, tour
routes, and brochure copy,” states Christina Villasenor,
CNT’s tour planner. At the same time, CNT stays vigilant
in providing what visitors want, making adjustments to tours
based on guest responses. By staying sensitive to people’s
cultures and dignifying their heritage,
CNT has forged a partnership based on mutual need and respect.
Make
Sites and Programs Come Alive: All of the tours have
an artistic presentation, demonstration, exhibit, or performance.
The interpretation each artist brings to his or her show enlivens
the verbal history being shared by the tour guide. It’s
not uncommon for tour guests to feel moved enough to participate
in live presentations, such as on the Roots of Chicago Blues
and Gospel tour, when guests joined performers on stage for a
call-and-response song. Smell and taste are big parts of bringing
your site to life. All of the special tours CNT produces include
lunch at a restaurant that reflects the theme or ethnicity of
the tours.
Focus
on Quality and Authenticity: “
When I interview potential guides,” says
Villasenor, “I ask them to tell me
their story about their neighborhood.
They often have little-known information or just good juicy stuff
that has been
handed down through their families that
is fascinating—and not the kind of thing you’re likely
to find at the library.” Villasenor helps each guide prepare
a
script for their tour, working together to research facts, dates,
and names.
Many gift shops along the routes offer authentic hand-crafted
items, and meals offered on the special tours always incorporate
authentic elements of the culture
or heritage being represented.
Preserve
and Protect Resources: By generating tourism income,
CNT has helped the diverse, small communities in the city become
economically viable. A stronger economy allows community leaders,
property owners, and businesspeople to maintain and protect their
historic built environment and perpetuate their
cultural resources.
Results
CNT offers 19 unique tours that employ more than
50 community
and site guides. They support nearly
as many community artists by providing them with additional exposure
and income, and contribute to local economies through restaurant
and
gift-shop sales.
Local businesses reap long-term
economic improvements. Statistics show that as many as 12 percent
of CNT guests return to shop at neighborhood stores later.
To increase the
likelihood of repeat visitors, CNT
provides each guest with driving and public transportation directions
to
the neighborhood and also gives the addresses for the stops along
the tour.
A full 83 percent of CNT guests live in or near Chicago.
The tours offer a comfortable way for area residents to explore
and embrace cultures they may not have previously understood;
to tread in unfamiliar territory they mi`ght otherwise have avoided.
Guest surveys indicate a 92 percent approval rating based on
the quality of the tours and guides. These end surveys speak
to some positive shifts in perceptions about the communities.
The people at Sears were so pleased with the work that
CNT is doing, they extended their original grant another year,
bestowing an additional $50,000 in 2000 on top of the $200,000
provided between 1997 to 1999.
Conversely, the tours build community
pride. “Some
communities don’t think they have anything to share,” Villasenor
explains. “But once we sit down with guides to help them
train and research their neighborhoods, they realize the wealth
of history and lore they have and the importance of not losing
it.” Adds Commissioner Weisberg, “Commercial tour
operators weren’t really interested in getting off their
regular routes and venturing into the local communities. They
didn’t feel any sense of connection to the neighborhoods.
But locals who have deep ties to their communities were not
only willing but eager to participate in this venture, and so
became our tour guides
and ambassadors for their neighborhoods.”
Downtown Chicago is a tourist mecca. But,
beyond its renowned center city, Chicago
boasts a melange of ethnic neighborhoods
that can link a person to their homeland
or awaken wanderlust in armchair travelers. Like
the world it represents, Chicago is a very big,
sometimes intimidating place. What the city needs
is a way to show off its diversity by extending warm
welcomes to its lesser-known areas while helping
distribute the economic benefits of tourism. 
As then-director of Community Cultural Development for the city’s
Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), Guzman spoke regularly
with representatives of scores of small, nonprofit arts and cultural
organizations scattered throughout the city’s
ethnic centers. Their shared goals of preserving and perpetuating
these unique cultural heritages were often hampered by limited
audiences and small budgets. Guzman and her colleagues recognized
the importance of sharing the cultural riches of these neighborhoods
in order to broaden views and bridge gaps. Yet most tourists,
and many Chicagoans, in fact, were either unaware of these communities
or apprehensive about venturing beyond the commonly toured areas.
In 1991, DCA secured a $150,000 National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA) grant that paid for promotional brochures, collaborative
exhibition projects, and computer and website training for the
city’s ethnic arts and cultural organizations. In 1994,
as an extension of DCA’s outreach efforts, Guzman organized
van tours of ethnic neighborhoods. “In the beginning,
I was driving the van and giving the tour, and it wasn’t
easy,” explains Guzman,
who took a tour out once a month to
one of five neighborhoods, explaining
the community’s ethnic roots, cultural
traditions, and architectural evolution.
In 1997, Guzman spearheaded
the complicated effort of coordinating about 25 cultural partners
in a collaborative effort to take
visitors into the neighborhoods to see, hear, smell, and taste
the whole experience. This initiative—Chicago Neighborhood
Tours (CNT)—managed by the Office of Tourism within the
DCA, was funded with a $200,000 three-year grant from Sears,
Roebuck & Co., and matching city funds. An outgrowth of the
CNT, the Chicago Neighborhoods Gift Shops project, was established
that same year with grants totaling $80,000 from NEA and the
Nathan Cummings Foundation. Selling ethnically specific and authentic,
handcrafted merchandise, the shops provide alternative sources
of income for community-based arts organizations.
Special Tours present an amalgam of information about a culture
and its history in the city, and they are often tied into neighborhood
events. Presented by community historians who have researched
their
subjects thoroughly, these are longer,
more expensive, and more in-depth than the regular tours. Special
Tours include
The Great Chicago Fire, Threads of Ireland, A Jewish Legacy,
Gay and Lesbian History, and the most popular tour for international
visitors, Roots of Chicago Blues and Gospel. During a five-hour
Special Tour, guests are taken on a combination driving-walking
tour of the district, view an artistic performance or exhibit,
and have lunch
at any one of a number of participating restaurants that serve
traditional cuisines from around the globe.
Collaborate: “Cultural
tourism through CNT is done collaboratively,” says
Guzman. “City agencies become partners with each other
and with community-based cultural centers, redevelopment corporations,
chambers of commerce, local businesses, and neighborhood residents.” The
community arts organizations do not have
the time or budgets to market themselves as well as CNT can through
its colorful and artistic brochures, website, press
coverage, and paid advertisements. Together the partners accomplish
what
no one entity could.
Find the Fit Between the Community and Tourism: The point of
CNT is to promote the cultural heritage of the communities
it serves. The trick is to do it without being invasive or inappropriate. “We
never bypass the local communities or try to speak for them.
They are always, from the inception of the tour on, included
in the decision-making process regarding script content, tour
routes, and brochure copy,” states Christina Villasenor,
CNT’s tour planner. At the same time, CNT stays vigilant
in providing what visitors want, making adjustments to tours
based on guest responses. By staying sensitive to people’s
cultures and dignifying their heritage,
CNT has forged a partnership based on mutual need and respect. 
Make
Sites and Programs Come Alive: All of the tours have
an artistic presentation, demonstration, exhibit, or performance.
The interpretation each artist brings to his or her show enlivens
the verbal history being shared by the tour guide. It’s
not uncommon for tour guests to feel moved enough to participate
in live presentations, such as on the Roots of Chicago Blues
and Gospel tour, when guests joined performers on stage for a
call-and-response song. Smell and taste are big parts of bringing
your site to life. All of the special tours CNT produces include
lunch at a restaurant that reflects the theme or ethnicity of
the tours.
Focus
on Quality and Authenticity: “
When I interview potential guides,” says
Villasenor, “I ask them to tell me
their story about their neighborhood.
They often have little-known information or just good juicy stuff
that has been
handed down through their families that
is fascinating—and not the kind of thing you’re likely
to find at the library.” Villasenor helps each guide prepare
a
script for their tour, working together to research facts, dates,
and names. 
Preserve
and Protect Resources: By generating tourism income,
CNT has helped the diverse, small communities in the city become
economically viable. A stronger economy allows community leaders,
property owners, and businesspeople to maintain and protect their
historic built environment and perpetuate their
cultural resources. 
Local businesses reap long-term
economic improvements. Statistics show that as many as 12 percent
of CNT guests return to shop at neighborhood stores later.
To increase the
likelihood of repeat visitors, CNT
provides each guest with driving and public transportation directions
to
the neighborhood and also gives the addresses for the stops along
the tour.
