Orlando Vacation Homes Rentals

posted by orlandovacationhome on Aug 31

International tourism to the United States and Florida has begun to show some life. Back in October of 2009, we blogged about the forecast of inbound international travel for 2010. At the time, it seemed overly optimistic that there was any possibility of improvement. The latest tourism trends continue to show that international travel spending is on the upswing.

The Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI) reports that international visitors spent 15% more in June 2010 than they did during the same period in 2009. This translates into about $1.4 billion more for June, 2010. Some additional noteworthy points that were part of this travel and tourism report:

• This marks the sixth consecutive increase in monthly international tourism growth
• Passenger airfares received from international visitors is up 17% from 2009 to 2010 
• 2010 spending by international visitors is up 7% YTD.
• Spending by Americans on domestic travel and tourism is only up 2% for 2010 YTD.

For the latest OTTI update with historical spending data, please click here.

This increase in aggregate international tourism would parallel what we are seeing in Orlando. Robust demand for new attractions has helped drive incremental improvements in demand for local lodging including area vacation rentals. International travellers particularly enjoy vacation homes because of the affordable luxuries. For instance, the “Made for Canadians” promotion helped spur renewed interest in Orlando tourism as well as rental homes as the accomodation of choice. 

Moreover, due to the longer length of stay, having the comforts of home makes any vacation more enjoyable. These amenities often include wireless internet, game rooms, ample living space and privacy. For reviews on over 80 resort vacation home communities, please click on our profiles located on the main page.

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Aug 25

Holidays at Universal Studios® and Walt Disney World® make for the perfect Orlando Christmas. In addition to these great parks, celebrate the season in you very own private vacation home complete with such luxuries as multiple bedrooms and private bathrooms, wireless internet, gameroom and family friendly home theatres. Top notch vacation home communities such as Vista Cay Resort are located just minutes from Universal and Disney..

A sampling of memorable and recommended holiday events in and around Orlando include:

• Universal Studios Orlando will feature festive holiday activities such as the Macy’s Holiday Parade with floats and ballons from the namesake parade in NYC. Marching bands from all over the country will also attend making the musical entertainment quite special. Music recorded by Mannheim Steamroller will fill the air with melodic merriment to suit the entire family. The “Holiday Concert Series” and Grinchmas™ at Universal Studios are all fan favorites as well.

• Not to be outdone, Walt Disney World® sponsors among others Mickey’s Very Merry Chrismas Party and the Epcot Candlelight Processional during the holidays.  Perhaps nowhere else on Earth offers such great family friendly entertainment for everyone to enjoy? Mickey’s Very Merry party will debut on November 8th and run sporadically through December 19th. Click here for specific Disney dates. The Epcot Holidays Around the World – Candlelight Processional is slated to begin on November 26th and delight nightly through December 30th. Consult the Candlelight Processional website for specific times and more information.

• Another memorable holiday idea for the family is to stop by the downtown area in Celebration, Fl. The town goes all out to decorate storefronts and beautiful residential homes for a “Christmas in Celebration, Florida” theme. In 2008, the town introduced “snowing” machines which are actually soap bubbles made to look like real snow. This show typically starts at 6 p.m. and runs to 9 p.m. nightly. The town of Celebration is just south of Orlando and is minutes away from most area vacation home communities. 

And by the way, if you had the good fortune to be in Orlando on Christmas eve, how would you plausibly explain how Santa would or could visit your hotel room to your kids? Answer: Kids are too smart these days, it cannot be done. The only solution is to stay in your very own Orlando rental home during the holidays. Ole’ Saint Nick will be happy to see you as well. You can bake brownies and cookies for him right in your own self-catering kitchen. Have a great time in Orlando for the holidays!

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posted by orlandovacationhome on May 18

Although the selection of villas near Universal Studios is not as numerous as those near Disney World, there are still some great options for you. These quality choices include the Vista Cay Orlando Resort and the Isles at Cay Commons. If your vacation itinerary mostly includes the Universal, SeaWorld or Aquatica parks, staying in Vista Cay or the Isles at Cay Commons will save you tons of driving time. Some quick notes on the Vista Cay Resort and the Isles at Cay Commons:

• Both resorts are townhome or condominium style resorts. These vary from the traditional vacation home product with individual private pools.
• Size of the units vary, but typical townhomes are 2 or 3 bedrooms.
• These two resorts share extensive common area resort style amenities including a clubhouse, concierge and more.
• Distance to Universal Studios is roughly 4 miles for each resort.

Although Universal is in a prime location for these 2 communities, proximity to several other area attractions is another enticing feature. These nearby attractions include:

• SeaWorld Orlando is only approximately 2 miles from these 2 resort communities.
• The Orlando Convention Center is also less than 2 1/2 miles away from both Vista Cay and the Isles at Cay Commons.
• The Fun Spot Action Park, a smaller fun family park, is located close by on International Drive.
• There is plenty of shopping on International Drive including the Prime Outlets Orlando Mall .

If these villas near Universal Studios Orlando do not suit you or your family, visit our main page for reviews on over 80 additional resort communities. However, if you wish to visit Universal for several days, Vista Cay or the Isles at Cay Commons villas would make an excellent choice.

Isle at Cay Commons

Vista Cay Orlando

villas near universal studios

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Apr 14

The Office of Tourism and Travel Industries (OTTI) released some interesting booking data and trends for various tourism segments that are very important to the Orlando vacation home rental market. As we have reported before and as the headliner for us, Brazilian travel to the United States and Florida continues to be on fire.  

Some notes on the recent OTTI reports:

• Brazilian travel to the United States from the month ending January, 2009 to the month January, 2010 increased an astounding 30%. SEE REPORT. Inbound travel from South America as a whole was up 18%. As we blogged last year noting International Travel Trends, Brazilian visitors to Florida are increasing markedly year-over-year. Muito Obrigado Brasil!
• Canadian travel is projected to be flat for 2010 although 2009 did show signs of improvement. Canada is the largest source of international travellers for the US.
• United Kingdom bookings to the United States are also expected to be flat for 2010. See the Analysis Here.

Our sources indicate that these trends hold true for travel to Florida as well. If this growth continues, as we think it will, South Americans will have a major impact on the tourism markets in both Central and South Florida. South Americans cherish the space and amenities that Florida villas have to offer, so this demographic trend should help bolster the vacation home segment in the coming years as well.

In addition, vacation homes for Brazilians in Orlando have become more and more popular over the last two years, a trend that is sure to continue.

Vacation Homes in Orlando

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Mar 10

In the first bit of postive news for Florida tourism, travel to Orlando turned positive in January 2010. This is according to the most recent year over year volume comparisons for the Orlando International Airport. Please click on the following link for the latest report:   http://www.orlandoairports.net/press/2010/20100308.htm.

The latest report indicates the following air passenger results:

• Overall air passenger volume to the OIA was up 2.93% in January 2010 compared to January 2009
• Domestic volume increased 2.76% and international traffic increased 4.63% for that same period

Typically air passenger volumes have been a leading indicator for the local tourist economy along with an accurate predictor for resort and lodging occupancies. This is a good early sign. Other financial signs seem to indicate that we have reached a short term trough and that economic conditions should improve from here.

What does this mean for the average traveller wishing to visit Florida in 2010? With new attractions in Orlando opening for early summer, resorts should begin to fill quickly. We would recommend that one should not wait until the last minute or many highly desired communities will fill during the higher occupancy periods. As occupancies and bookings begin to rise, the cheap deals will also vanish. For a recent post on our advice for the best times to visit Orlando, click here.

For reviews on many resorts located in Central Florida, consult our ratings and profiles of over 80 area resort communities. Some of the top rated vacation rentals in 2010 include Bella Vida, Cumbrian Lakes, Encantada Resort, Oakwater Resort, Reunion Resort, Tuscan Hills and Watersong Resort. All of these resorts are comprehensively reviewed along with critical details to enjoy your stay.

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Feb 28

The Arnold Palmer Invitational staff recently announced a great new promotion on Friday, March 26th during the Bay Hill PGA tour golf event. The name for the promotion is Wine and Dine on 9 which will be held from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. that day. The special event pass is sold separately and will entitle you to appetizer and wine samples from such great local restaurants as Morton’s, Flemings, Timpano’s and The Capital Grille. If you love food, you don’t have any excuses not to attend this event!

Player commitments for the Palmer Invitational continue to roll in. As of this date, player commitments include Phil Mickelson, Retief Goosen, local resident Zach Johnson, Ryan Palmer, Kenny Perry, Vijah Singh, Bubba Watson and rising star Brandt Snedeker. Daily player pairings for the Arnold Palmer Invitational are announced on the event website. Tournament proceeds benefit the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies.

If you are also looking to play a little golf in Orlando during the tournament, we suggest reviewing a recent post on the best golf villas in Orlando. We covered some of the best vacation rental communities located on or adjacent to area courses. These golfing communities in the Orlando area include Reunion Resort, Highlands Reserve, and Windsor Palms.  If you want to simply attend this great local event, consult our reviews of over 80 great resorts in Central Florida located on our main page. Most vacation home communities are located just 20-25 minutes away from this PGA tour event.

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Feb 8

We wanted to do a little research on flights from London to Orlando comparing the two major air passenger carriers, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. As the buzz builds for the opening day of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, international airline traffic is also on the rise to the Orlando airports.

The plethora of direct international service to Orlando, Florida now make travelling to the city much easier. Staying in a comfortable vacation villa will fully complement your vacation stay.

In fact, despite the slump in domestic air traffic, international passenger traffic to Orlando actually increased 11% in 2009. Flights from London to Orlando are an important part of the city’s overall tourist volume. Let’s look at two major carriers, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, based on their air schedules to Florida.

British Airways vs. Virgin Atlantic

Flight Comparison

Flights from London to Orlando Florida

• Flights Per Day – Bristish Airways (1), Virgin Atlantic (5);  Advantage: Virgin Atlantic
• Levels of Service – Bristish Airways (3), Virgin Atlantic (3);  Draw
• Departure Locations in London – British Airways (1), Virgin Atlantic (2); Advantage: Virgin Atlantic
• Skytrax Airline Quality Rating – British Airways (Four Stars), Virgin Atlantic (Four Stars): Draw

As you can see, both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have excellent airline service ratings and multiple levels of service for the London to Orlando flights. However, Virgin Atlantic does edge British Airways based upon the number of flights per day and the availability of flight service schedules from two different London airports, Gatwick and Heathrow. Since flight pricing is quite dynamic, we’ll let the prospective traveller do their own due diligence to determine rate comparisons.

Regardless of which airline you choose, Orlando vacation villa rentals provide the best value for your vacation in Central Florida. Vacation villa homes in Orlando provide a variety of amenities and choices in location, price and quality. For reviews on over 80 vacation rental communities in the area, please consult the main page of this website.

Source: All figures are based on a review of the www.britishairways.com and www.virginatlantic.com airline websites. Please read the general disclaimer on our website for more information.

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Feb 5

We have been closely following developments as it relates to the Sunrail passenger schedule and the Orlando high speed rail plan. Kissimmee and South Poinciana are slated for stops on the commuter rail system. Curiously and to our selfish disappointment, the International Drive corridor, the Orlando International Airport, and such attractions as Disney World are not part of the existing Sunrail commuter rail plan.

We enthusiastically applaude efforts to improve the transportation infrastructure in Central Florida. However, there is great local disagreement on local demand for the new $4 billion rail system and the central focus on connecting Orlando and Tampa by high speed rail. Why are more efforts not being placed on adding more tourist connections such as those mentioned above to the plan? Perhaps we will learn more in the coming weeks and months.

Connecting the South Poinciana station and other tourist stops to Disney would be a huge success in our opinion. Disney cast members alone would provide thousands of additional daily passengers and would be a real boon to the industry. The inside buzz seems to be that government officials are banking on Disney funding this type of Sunrail expansion with private money. Although tourist passenger revenues and park employees would be a fraction of total system usage, this overall new programme could be the financial core of the whole system that reduces taxpayer funded operational deficits in other areas.

Nevertheless and selfishly speaking, Orlando vacation rental guests would also benefit greatly from such added passenger rail connections to Disney, I-Drive and the airport to the South Poinciana and Kissimmee Stations. Most of our international visitors are very familiar with travelling in this manner and the adoption rate would be quite high. International visitors to Orlando also spend the highest amount locally per capita. Let our government leaders reconsider a revised schedule that will add more tourist attraction related stops to the Sunrail passsenger rail system. For a direct link to the Sunrail website, please click here.

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Jan 25

Consumer travel information based websites, also known as infomediaries, have an increasing impact on Orlando Florida vacation planning. Some examples of these types of sites include the Trip Advisor reviews portal, Flip Key rentals, and of course this vacation reviews based website.

Our interest was piqued after a recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers travel research report revealed that these consumer information websites have a rising influence on online travel decision making. In fact, travel infomediaries show strong traffic growth trends, especially in Europe. Click here for this previous blog post.

For this trend to continue, we believe there are at least three ingredients that online travel “infomediary” sites must emphasize for the benefit of online travel consumers. These essential factors include consumer trust, content relevancy and information timeliness. Each of these in their own right have a great influence on Orlando Florida vacation planning, the focus of this website. Click here to connect to the City of Orlando’s official website.

The first and most important feature a consumer must maintain for any infomediary travel site is consumer trust. Any prospective consumer of web content should read the site’s disclaimer and then evaluate the advertising (if any) on the site. This may give one insight or balance for possible commercial conflicts. If the site is a blog, do the content editors disclose particular biases a reader will need to know? For instance, this website clearly indicates our bias towards vacation rentals over hotels. We also clearly indicate that our reviews are opinion based only.

Also, what percentage of the reviews receive 4 or 5 star ratings for an online reviews portal? Persistent high ratings throughout the site may indicate “score inflation”. Consumers should prefer sites with discerning travellers or professionals with variances in scoring to indicate a better indication of true quality designations and preferences.

Content relevancy also plays a key role in the rise of online consumer information websites. Does the content posted vis-a-vis reviews pertain to my own personal prospective vacation at that resort, hotel or vacation rental? A good example of a site doing great work in this arena is the Flipkey rentals site with reviews right down to a particular vacation home.

For a vacation home review site, it is important to look at the breakdown by resort or community variables. For instance, this site provides decision variables such as location, community facilities, amenities, and driving distances, and then let the consumer decide. This high level of interactivity ultimately has an impact on personal content relevancy for any successful online travel website.

Information timeliness is the third factor infomediaries must fulfill to be successful. For example, some consumer oriented websites retain posted reviews well over 18 months old. These may provide some insight, but we believe resort and community quality is dynamic over time. If new updates are not posted regularly the reviews lose relevancy. This particularly applies to smaller resorts or communities that often get less than five posted consumer reviews monthly.

As you move forward with your Orlando Florida vacation planning, evaluate information based travel websites carefully. With consumer trust, content relevancy and information timeliness, travel decisions can be strongly aided by online infomediaries.

Feel free to consult this website for vacation reviews of over 80+ resort communities along with news on what’s happening in the Central Florida area. We strive to fulfill traveller expectations with unbiased reviews, continuously updated interactive ratings and reliable information profiles.

Vacation Home Review Web Sites

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posted by orlandovacationhome on Jan 18

Capital One Bowl 2011 – Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium

The 2011 Capital One Bowl in Orlando will be held on January 1, 2011 at the Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium. The projected time for the game is 1:00 EST. This top tier college football bowl game features a representative of the Big Ten Conference versus the highly competitive Southeastern Conference. The final score from the 2010 Capital One Bowl was 19-17 in favor of Penn State over Louisiana State. Funds from this college football bowl game and associated activities benefit regional community affiliated charities.

The area Citrus Bowl festivities are supervised by a very diligent and hard-working volunteer community organization - Florida Citrus Sports. Vacation homes in the Central Florida area are a perfect fit for any football fans wanting to get close to the stadium along with all the fun bowl activities. The vacation home and resort community reviews on this site will assist you with further information needed to book vacation rental accommodations.

There is big news for the 2011 Capital One Bowl game on several fronts. ESPN has retained the rights for the bowl game in 2011, a new $1 million plus astro turf field for the Citrus Bowl along with the addition of Nebraska to the Big Ten Conference in 2011-2012. The kick-off time will remain at approximately 1:00 p.m. EST for 2011, but in subsequent years the actual start time could fluctuate between Noon and 12:30 p.m. This additional flexibility should bode well for improved viewer ratings. Projected payout for the game is $4.0 million for each participating university. The University of Nebraska will also potentially represent the Big Ten in the 2012 Capital One Bowl with the new conference re-alignment.

The Citrus Bowl also announced a recent $10 million improvements campaign for overall stadium conditions. More specifically and as mentioned earlier, part of the funds will be used to upgrade the field turf which was a major issue during the 2010 Capital One Bowl. The  new synthetic field “astro turf” should help restore the reputation of this prestigious college bowl game.

Our initial prediction for the 2011 Capital One Bowl is the Arkansas Razorbacks vs. the Wisconsin Badgers. The Razorbacks return Ryan Mallett, a 2010-2011 Heisman Trophy candidate and first team pre-season All-American at quarterback. He began his college career at Michigan after signing with the team out of high school. Ryan Mallett is also expected to be drafted in the National Football League at some point after a successful 2010-11 season.

The University of Arkansas will be part of the very rugged Western division of the SEC. We believe the Alabama Crimson Tide will ultimately win the SEC and be pushed into a BCS bowl game. The Crimson Tide, under the coaching tutelage of Nick Saban, won the 2010 National Championship trophy. The Florida Gators, an odds on favorite to win the Eastern division of the SEC, would then play in the Sugar Bowl.

The 2010 Wisconsin Badgers football squad should be much improved. Coach Bret Bielema returns many starters from a team that won the 2009 Champs Sports Bowl and is a solid pre-season Top 20 team. However, keep an eye on the October home showdown with Ohio State. Ohio State will most likely be pushed up into a BCS game of some kind behind the leadership of much heralded Terrelle Pryor. Terrelle Pryor also has the potential to be a Heisman Trophy hopeful. Wisconsin has played in the Capital One Bowl before and should bring plenty of enthusiastic fans to Orlando.

Arkansas vs. Wisconsin would indeed be a hot ticket for a 2011 Capital One Bowl marquee match-up. Staying in an area Orlando vacation rental would top off a great holiday bowl season in Orlando. Consult our reviews of over 80+ vacation home resorts to help you select the accommodations that meet your needs.

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