Orlando is built around travel. Even the chamber of commerce - known internationally as the “we’re all gonna be rich!” Pep rally squad - admits that Orlando cannot survive without tourism.
Okay, #1, WDW isn't technically located in Orlando proper. It is located in Bay Lake and and Lake Buena Vista, FL. Universal is in Orlando. So if we are going to talk about the Orlando economy, but want to talk about WDW, then we need to clarify what area we're talking about: Orlando proper, or the Orlando area.
#2. People who work for WDW covers a broader living area.
Here's the breakdown according to the Orlando business website:
Leisure& Hosp 20.4%
Professional & business services 18.7%
Education & Health 11.9%
Retail Trade 11.2%
Gov't 9.8%
Construction 6.6%
Finance 5.7%
Manufacturing 3.7%
Wholesale Trade 3.3%
Transportation 3.2%
Fortune 1000 Companies Headquartered in Orlando: Publix, Darden, Harris, Wyndham, Tupperware.
Some Fortune 500 companies with operations/major manufacturing operations in Orlando: Lockheed Martin (5000+), Northrop Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne (1000+), Thales, L3Harris, leidos (500+), Blue Origin , Kaman ( no number = the number of area employees was not specified on website)
Additional companies with facilities in Orlando : Mitsubishi (500+), AAA (500+), Electronic Arts (500+),
Accenture (100,000+), Acredo (1000+), ADP (50,000), Advent Health (50,000+), Publix (10,000+), HCA healthcare (10,000+), University of Central FL (5,000+),Holiday Retirement (5,000+), Goodwill (5,000+), Darden (5,000+), Siemens (1000+)
WDW (50,000+) Universal (10,000+) Seas World (5,000+)
The area is also looking to become a hub for Advanced Manufacturing: Amcor (packaging) AMD (semicondiuctors), FARO (3D measurement and imaging), Regal Boats, Siemens (all kinds of stuff- power), VOXX (electronics)
To clarify, the website listed # of employees by range, I gave the low end #'s. So 100,000 is really 10,000-50,000 employees and 1,000 is really 1,000-5,000 employees.