Tourism Has Hot Summer By Todd Pack and Robert Johnson
Sentinel Staff Writers
July 5, 2002
International Drive is choked with minivans and family cars, hotels are bustling, and sweating tourists in 90-degree heat are waiting an hour or more for a two-minute race through Space Mountain at Disney's Magic Kingdom.
It's a scene being played out this week that seemed unimaginable nine months ago.
Orlando's tourist strip was nearly deserted in the days after terrorists slammed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Tourism officials feared business might never get back to normal -- or at least not for a long time.
Bill Peeper, usually one of tourism's loudest cheerleaders, said then, "I think it's a yearlong deal we're in for."
But on a recent afternoon over lunch in a nearly full hotel restaurant near SeaWorld Orlando, Peeper said one thing is clear: Central Florida's No. 1 industry is bouncing back more quickly than anyone had imagined.
Business isn't where it was before the recession, or even before the Sept. 11 attacks, but "a lot of people are feeling pretty good," said Peeper, the president of the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau.
And this weekend, the peak of summer vacation, all signs point to a decent season.
Echoing the sentiments of many in the tourism industry, Universal Orlando President Bob Gault said he thinks Orlando is having a good summer because there's pent-up demand for family travel, a demand that grows more powerful daily and one that Central Florida is uniquely able to meet.
"Our June performance [for theme parks] is ahead of last year, and our hotels are virtually sold out for the summer," he said.
Members of the Hudson family, visiting Walt Disney World this week from Philadelphia, had been planning their trip for two years. Those plans didn't change after the terrorist attacks.
"We were a little nervous about the flying part, but we have enough faith to do what we want," said Phillip Hudson, who traveled with his wife and two daughters.
But tourism, the economic engine that drives everything else in Central Florida, still faces a long recovery, with international visitors largely staying away.
"Until the international business comes back, we are not whole," Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Polak said.
International tourists account for about 10 percent of all visitors to Central Florida, but a sluggish world economy has lessened the number of people coming here from key markets, especially Latin America.
But the U.S. Commerce Department said in May that the decline in international visitors wasn't as steep as analysts predicted, and business already is picking up.
Visitors from Canada and Mexico are expected to increase 1 percent and 6 percent, respectively, in 2002, while the numbers of travelers from the largest overseas markets, the United Kingdom and Japan, are expected to increase about 5 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
In this country, a squishy economy and lingering fears of terrorism continue to discourage some people from flying. Usually, a quarter of all visitors to Central Florida travel by plane. Tourism officials say the decline of fly-in visitors has been largely offset by a considerable increase in the number coming by car.
Passenger counts at Orlando International Airport fell 9.5 percent in May from the same month a year earlier.
But hotel occupancy, a better measure of whether people are coming to Central Florida, was down an estimated 5 percent that month, according to preliminary weekly figures from Smith Travel Research, a Hendersonville, Tenn., company that tracks the U.S. lodging industry.
"Occupancy is recovering a little faster than we thought it would. We thought it would happen more in the third quarter," Smith Travel analyst Duane Vinson said.
Central Florida tourism officials attribute the relatively high occupancy rates in large part to aggressive advertising and discounting.
State and local tourism agencies usually direct a large percentage of their advertising at people in the Northeast and Midwest. But soon after the attacks and again this spring, they stepped up marketing efforts in Florida and other Southeastern states.
Officials also changed the pitch. Usually, they focus on the idea of a Florida vacation, with commercials showing pristine beaches, swaying palms and Cinderella Castle. But a nationwide slump in air travel forced them to put a greater emphasis on specific deals.
Such tactics have helped put heads in beds.
Orlando-area hotels were 65.7 percent full the week that ended June 15, a 2.8 percent decrease from the same period a year earlier, according to Smith Travel. On average, room rates are down 2.4 percent to $81.27 a night.But targeting people who live relatively close to Orlando has created other problems.
Florida residents generally don't stay as long or spend as much money as do tourists from other states or other countries.
On average, international visitors stayed 10 nights and spent $760 apiece in 2000, according to the visitors bureau. U.S. leisure travelers stayed six nights and spent $922 apiece.
But Florida residents stayed two or three nights and spent just $216 a person -- and that hurts everyone, from attractions and hotels to restaurants and souvenir stores.
"The rule of thumb is, the closer you are to the park, the less you're going to spend," SeaWorld Orlando marketing director Jim Atchison said.
So the park is trying to persuade them to open their pocketbooks in other ways.
Locals generally won't buy souvenir T-shirts, so SeaWorld's retail stores are selling more gifts, from Beanie Babies to candlesticks shaped like palm trees.
"We have a lot of loyalty members, pass holders who come back to the park again and again," said Bob Podrasky, vice president for merchandise. "There isn't a motivating reason for them to buy a [branded] souvenir. What they're telling us in surveys is, 'We like your product, but give us something without your name.' "
This week, workers packed up racks of SeaWorld T-shirts at the park's Wild Arctic shop to free up space for a small Christmas boutique, Podrasky said.
So far, he's pleased with the sales. "We're actually selling it [merchandise] before we get it out of the boxes and up on the wall," he said.
While most everyone is pleased with the turnout so far this summer, predicting whether the good times will last until school starts is more difficult.
Before, it wasn't unusual for people to plan their vacations several months in advance to lock in rates on hotels and airfare. Sept. 11 changed that.
Kathy Crumpler, whose family drove to Orlando from Wilmington, N.C., last month, waited until several weeks out to book a rental house.
"We waited in case something came up, some kind of 'event,' " Crumpler, 47, said during a trip to SeaWorld.
Orlando-area hoteliers say it isn't unusual now for people to book rooms only a day or two before they arrive -- in part because they want to see whether something would happen to disrupt their trip but also in hopes of finding last-minute bargains.
Some hoteliers are using different approaches to persuade travelers to plan ahead. Universal, for example, already is offering discounted rates at its new Royal Pacific resort for Florida residents planning trips for the Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas season.
Meanwhile, visitors such as the Golden family -- at the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday -- are helping the region's comeback.
"After Sept. 11, we didn't think we'd go anywhere," said Mitchie Golden, who drove from Malden, Mo., with her husband and two sons. "But you have to go on and live your life."
Sentinel Staff Writers
July 5, 2002
International Drive is choked with minivans and family cars, hotels are bustling, and sweating tourists in 90-degree heat are waiting an hour or more for a two-minute race through Space Mountain at Disney's Magic Kingdom.
It's a scene being played out this week that seemed unimaginable nine months ago.
Orlando's tourist strip was nearly deserted in the days after terrorists slammed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Tourism officials feared business might never get back to normal -- or at least not for a long time.
Bill Peeper, usually one of tourism's loudest cheerleaders, said then, "I think it's a yearlong deal we're in for."
But on a recent afternoon over lunch in a nearly full hotel restaurant near SeaWorld Orlando, Peeper said one thing is clear: Central Florida's No. 1 industry is bouncing back more quickly than anyone had imagined.
Business isn't where it was before the recession, or even before the Sept. 11 attacks, but "a lot of people are feeling pretty good," said Peeper, the president of the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau.
And this weekend, the peak of summer vacation, all signs point to a decent season.
Echoing the sentiments of many in the tourism industry, Universal Orlando President Bob Gault said he thinks Orlando is having a good summer because there's pent-up demand for family travel, a demand that grows more powerful daily and one that Central Florida is uniquely able to meet.
"Our June performance [for theme parks] is ahead of last year, and our hotels are virtually sold out for the summer," he said.
Members of the Hudson family, visiting Walt Disney World this week from Philadelphia, had been planning their trip for two years. Those plans didn't change after the terrorist attacks.
"We were a little nervous about the flying part, but we have enough faith to do what we want," said Phillip Hudson, who traveled with his wife and two daughters.
But tourism, the economic engine that drives everything else in Central Florida, still faces a long recovery, with international visitors largely staying away.
"Until the international business comes back, we are not whole," Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Polak said.
International tourists account for about 10 percent of all visitors to Central Florida, but a sluggish world economy has lessened the number of people coming here from key markets, especially Latin America.
But the U.S. Commerce Department said in May that the decline in international visitors wasn't as steep as analysts predicted, and business already is picking up.
Visitors from Canada and Mexico are expected to increase 1 percent and 6 percent, respectively, in 2002, while the numbers of travelers from the largest overseas markets, the United Kingdom and Japan, are expected to increase about 5 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
In this country, a squishy economy and lingering fears of terrorism continue to discourage some people from flying. Usually, a quarter of all visitors to Central Florida travel by plane. Tourism officials say the decline of fly-in visitors has been largely offset by a considerable increase in the number coming by car.
Passenger counts at Orlando International Airport fell 9.5 percent in May from the same month a year earlier.
But hotel occupancy, a better measure of whether people are coming to Central Florida, was down an estimated 5 percent that month, according to preliminary weekly figures from Smith Travel Research, a Hendersonville, Tenn., company that tracks the U.S. lodging industry.
"Occupancy is recovering a little faster than we thought it would. We thought it would happen more in the third quarter," Smith Travel analyst Duane Vinson said.
Central Florida tourism officials attribute the relatively high occupancy rates in large part to aggressive advertising and discounting.
State and local tourism agencies usually direct a large percentage of their advertising at people in the Northeast and Midwest. But soon after the attacks and again this spring, they stepped up marketing efforts in Florida and other Southeastern states.
Officials also changed the pitch. Usually, they focus on the idea of a Florida vacation, with commercials showing pristine beaches, swaying palms and Cinderella Castle. But a nationwide slump in air travel forced them to put a greater emphasis on specific deals.
Such tactics have helped put heads in beds.
Orlando-area hotels were 65.7 percent full the week that ended June 15, a 2.8 percent decrease from the same period a year earlier, according to Smith Travel. On average, room rates are down 2.4 percent to $81.27 a night.But targeting people who live relatively close to Orlando has created other problems.
Florida residents generally don't stay as long or spend as much money as do tourists from other states or other countries.
On average, international visitors stayed 10 nights and spent $760 apiece in 2000, according to the visitors bureau. U.S. leisure travelers stayed six nights and spent $922 apiece.
But Florida residents stayed two or three nights and spent just $216 a person -- and that hurts everyone, from attractions and hotels to restaurants and souvenir stores.
"The rule of thumb is, the closer you are to the park, the less you're going to spend," SeaWorld Orlando marketing director Jim Atchison said.
So the park is trying to persuade them to open their pocketbooks in other ways.
Locals generally won't buy souvenir T-shirts, so SeaWorld's retail stores are selling more gifts, from Beanie Babies to candlesticks shaped like palm trees.
"We have a lot of loyalty members, pass holders who come back to the park again and again," said Bob Podrasky, vice president for merchandise. "There isn't a motivating reason for them to buy a [branded] souvenir. What they're telling us in surveys is, 'We like your product, but give us something without your name.' "
This week, workers packed up racks of SeaWorld T-shirts at the park's Wild Arctic shop to free up space for a small Christmas boutique, Podrasky said.
So far, he's pleased with the sales. "We're actually selling it [merchandise] before we get it out of the boxes and up on the wall," he said.
While most everyone is pleased with the turnout so far this summer, predicting whether the good times will last until school starts is more difficult.
Before, it wasn't unusual for people to plan their vacations several months in advance to lock in rates on hotels and airfare. Sept. 11 changed that.
Kathy Crumpler, whose family drove to Orlando from Wilmington, N.C., last month, waited until several weeks out to book a rental house.
"We waited in case something came up, some kind of 'event,' " Crumpler, 47, said during a trip to SeaWorld.
Orlando-area hoteliers say it isn't unusual now for people to book rooms only a day or two before they arrive -- in part because they want to see whether something would happen to disrupt their trip but also in hopes of finding last-minute bargains.
Some hoteliers are using different approaches to persuade travelers to plan ahead. Universal, for example, already is offering discounted rates at its new Royal Pacific resort for Florida residents planning trips for the Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas season.
Meanwhile, visitors such as the Golden family -- at the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday -- are helping the region's comeback.
"After Sept. 11, we didn't think we'd go anywhere," said Mitchie Golden, who drove from Malden, Mo., with her husband and two sons. "But you have to go on and live your life."
