OOAK Table Tennis Forum

http://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news ... ennis.html

Table tennis just may prove the secret weapon in attracting the Chinese to Chicago — both as tourists and potential business partners.

According to ChooseChicago, the city’s tourism office, China expects to send 1.6 million visitors and 150,000 students to the United States in 2012. They are predicted to spend a whopping $12.6 billion while in the U.S. ChooseChicago wants to lure more of these big-spending Chinese visitors to the Windy City.

Since taking office last year, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has made attracting new business to Chicago a top priority. Along with reforming the city public school system of course.

Robert Blackwell Jr., president of Killerspin, a 10-year-old Chicago-based manufacturer of table tennis equipment, is certainly doing his part to help ChooseChicago and Emanuel court the Chinese.

The Chinese love the game of table tennis. Not ping pong, mind you, which is a trademarked name. But table tennis.

With the help of Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce CEO Jerry Roper and other local executives, Blackwell is aiming to make Chicago the table tennis capital of America.

Toward that end, and in conjunction with the Chicago Sports Commission, Blackwell is hosting the first-ever Chicago International Table Tennis Festival from Sept. 27 through 29.

Blackwell has inked some major table tennis luminaries for his event, including Serbian star Biba Golic, often described as “the Anna Kournikova of table tennis.” The players also hail from numerous other countries where there is an interest in table tennis, including Greece, Slovenia, Sweden, Brazil and China.

Blackwell hopes the table tennis festival will bring in a significant contingent of Chinese visitors, who then will be able to mix and mingle with key Chicago business development executives, such as Roper. Tours of the city and deeper business discussions could result from the initial contact at the table tennis festival.

This is how ChooseChicago, Killerspin and Blackwell are looking to make table tennis a tool for business development in Chicago. Let the games begin.

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