Kansas frontman and keyboardist Ronnie Platt exalts the crowd at the 36th annual Chandler Chamber of Commerce Ostrich Festival in March. Members of the city’s economic development staff recently told the City Council that overall, tourism in the city appears to be up in 2026.
Tourism is up in Chandler, according to information presented to City Council at a work session.
Kimberly Janes, senior program manager for the city’s economic development department, said even with downturns in Canadian and other foreign travel to central Arizona, cities like Chandler have thrived in terms of visitors.
“There is definitely a softening (regionally), although Chandler is outperforming its market,” Janes said. “We are capturing a higher percentage of occupancy in hotels, and in 2026, our booking rates are outpacing both 2025 and 2024. We’re seeing more group bookings and group lead opportunities.”
Janes went over a myriad of numbers, nearly all of which showed positive tourism growth in the 2026 and/or other recent years in the city, along with some of the overall tourism and strategy and tactics of the department.
Janes said Chandler’s top competitors for tourism in the Valley are Gilbert, Tempe, Mesa and, surprisingly, Avondale and Peoria. She said what ties the six cities together is none of the six have a sort of international reputation as a destination Phoenix suburb in the way Scottsdale and Glendale might have and all six have tourism development committees.
“When we started talking about this in 2018, three of those six cities didn’t even have those committees then,” Janes said.
In fact, Janes said regarding branding, there’s an emphasis on Chandler’s proximity to Scottsdale and Phoenix where major sports and/or entertainment industry events happen.
She also mentioned emphasis on large annual events, such as the Chandler Chamber’s Ostrich Festival. And while the city seems to have moved beyond “city of innovation” as a marketing term, “innovative” is mentioned more than once as a keyword in branding, according to a staff report.
Janes said there are 39 hotels in the city, and there are two kinds of business travel in the hotel business: the kind that require meeting space, which only a handful of Chandler hotels provide, and those with little or no meeting or event spaces.
She said the type of hotels built in the city hasn’t changed much, so there is still a business focus.
Mayor Kevin Hartke asked if entertainment overall is a tourism draw, in terms of bars and restaurants also seeing some benefit.
Economic Development Director Micah Miranda said while he didn’t have granular data on specific parts of the Chandler bar and restaurant revenue scene, he believes gross receipts taxes are up, year over year.
Jason W. Brooks News Editor | Chandler Independent
Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.
Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.
Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.
Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.
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