It is welcome and exciting news that several parks and attractions are now growing and expanding including Legoland®, Walt Disney World®, Universal Studios and Harry Potter, and Sea World.

Tourism development leads to a positive improvement for all Floridians and tourists alike. The huge success of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter has significantly boosted tourism and business activity around the Universal Studios area and Orlando as a whole.

Tourism is Orlando’s bread and butter. It is the most important industry for the Central Florida region.

On a global scale tourism is also important:

• Tourism accounts for roughly 7% of worldwide employment
• Tourism is quite economically helpful due to the labor intensity of most services
• Demand for tourism is often seasonal, but typically  provides a year round personal income for many

When looking at the specific economic impact of vacation rentals in Central Florida, some key facts emerge from a research study released in 2007-08:

• Over 14,500 jobs were created or impacted by vacation home rentals in Central Florida. However, the total economic and employment impact is most likely much larger.
• The annual economic impact of vacation home rentals to the Central Florida area was over $1.7 billion. Again, many experts indicate these are conservative figures.

The vacation home rental market is a key player in the Central Florida economy. Many potential tourists and travelers are surprised at the size, number and quality choices that vacation homes have to offer. There are over 80 vacation home communities that cater to rentals in Clermont, Davenport, Kissimmee, and Orlando. In this four county area, vacation homes link tourism to the local economy.

In short, we are proud to be part of an industry that provides a robust economic impact that lifts the living standards for many in Central Florida. Selecting a vacation home accommodation helps provide opportunity for individuals from all walks of life in Orlando and surrounding areas.

Visit our home page for profiles on numerous vacaion home communities around Central Florida. We provide various information including: video, pictures and location information for each resort community. Have a great vacation in Central Florida!

Although Orlando international air passenger travel is only roughly 10% of overall traffic, double digit increases clearly offset declines in domestic tourism. Two other interesting and relevant items of note were pulled from an academic research report entitled The Economic Impact of America’s Largest Service Export : Travel & Tourism -

• International visitors spend roughly twice as much per visitor on average as domestic travellers
• Average length of stay for international visitors is 1 week vs. much shorter lengths of stay for domestic travellers dependent on location

We’ll focus on the latter point as it relates to villas to rent in Kissimmee and Orlando. As indicated, international travellers desire lodging accommodations that are conducive for these longer term stays. This includes several in-home amenities that are normally included with villa rentals that make a long term vacation stay more comfortable:

• Self-catering kitchens to cook homemade meals for family and friends
• Large living spaces and private bathrooms for every member of the family
• Vacation villas with private pools for all friends and family

For more information on  vacation home rental resorts and subdivisions in Orlando,  please click on the community section of our home page. We have posted over 80 tours of various vacation rental communities located in the towns of  Clermont, Davenport, Kissimmee and Orlando. Find out why such vacation villas and condos are the accommodation of choice for a family or group staying in Central Florida.

New York City and Orlando have been competing for years for the title of the “most visited travel destination” in the United States. Orlando currently has a 3 million visitor advantage or at least based upon the city’s own counting methodology.

At issue is the fact that Orlando counts visitors traveling as far away as Kissimmee and Davenport in Polk, Lake and Osceola counties and New York City only counts travellers in a much narrower geographic area.

Vacation Rentals in Central Florida

Polk, Lake and Osceola counties are huge vacation home rental destination markets in Central Florida.

The biggest difference when comparing New York and Orlando is the fact that vacation rentals are a fraction of NYC’s lodging accomodations.  The Central Florida lodging market is significantly different. The economic impact of vacation homes in Osceola County alone was over $1 billion with over 1.24 million visitors staying in rental homes. This study was conducted a few years ago, so these numbers could be much higher now.

The number of vacation rentals in Central Florida provide a unique option for travellers that most destinations cannot offer in terms of market size and scope. Vacation rentals help keep Orlando in the top spot. The number and variety of theme parks and attraction guests in the region simply could not be served without the capabilities and conveniences that vacation home rentals offer the Central Florida area.

Moreover, if you add in the tourists staying in vacation rentals in Lake and Polk County, this would potentially account for over 3 million extra tourists. Thus, vacation home rentals potentially provide the edge for Orlando or more technically Central Florida, as America’s top vacation destination.

The Orlando travel and tourism promotion symbolizes the growing recognition that Canada may be Orlando and Florida’s best opportunity at nurturing a large international inbound tourist market. Canada enjoys a huge treasure of natural resources that boosts the national economy. The other star performer having a healthy national economy and with growing visitation to Florida is Brazil.

We blogged about this several months ago, and the fact that many Floridians are not aware of how big Canadian tourism is for Florida. Canadian tourism adds about $2 billion to the state economy according to available economic impact data.

Canadian travel has always been a huge impact on the Orlando vacation rentals market. Since many Canadians typically have a longer length of stay in Orlando, the vacation home product lends itself to this lifestyle. Canadians love the residential style amenities that come with vacation rentals. Vacation home amenities allow visitors to stay longer and in greater comfort. For this and other reasons, Canadian travel and tourism to Florida for vacation rental stays will continue to grow and prosper.

In terms of the Made for Canadians discounts at Orlando area businesses through April, 2010, please click here. Most merchants will require a passport or driver’s license to redeem the applicable benefits. Our favorite Made for Canadian promotional benefits and discounts in Orlando include:

• Discounts for admission to the Arnold Palmer Invitational professional golf tournament in March, 2010
• Discounts on SeaWorld and Aquatica admission
• Promotional pricing for Gatorland Park
• Discounts for the Orange County Regional History Center and the Orlando Science Center
• Discounts for Walt Disney World and the Wet N’ Wild Water Park

Orlando Vacation Homes for Canadians

The 67 Days of Smiles tour by Kyle Post and Stacey Doornbos visited a vacation home community on Day 62 of their tour. As we have blogged before, vacation homes are becoming a more mainstream choice for Orlando tourists. This promo choice exemplifies this fact.

Acadia Estates villas were also featured in a video tour of the luxurious Kissimmee vacation rental community on the Orlando CVB website. Acadia Estates is an exclusive community of 5 to 7 bedroom vacation rentals in a private gated cul-de-sac. Acadia Estates is located in a convenient location approximately 7 miles to Disney’s Magic Kingdom and 4 miles to Animal Kingdom.

We applaude the Orlando Convention and Visitors Bureau for carving out time for Kyle and Stacey to view and stay in a representative vacation home community. Acadia Estates is/was an excellent choice for the type of quality accommodations that vacation rentals have to offer visitors to the area.

Consult the community reviews section of our website for a review of Acadia Estates villas along with 80+ other vacation rental communities in Kissimmee, Clermont, Orlando, and Davenport.

Acadia Estates

Stacey Doornbos and Kyle Post (appropriately named for a blogger) from New York were selected as the new “Orlando Makes Me Smile” Tourism Campaign Ambassadors. They will blog about over 100 attractions the area has to offer. As stated earlier, this will include both the smaller yet high quality attractions along with news from the bigger more well known venues.

As active followers of social media, we applaude the actions of the OOCVB. Social media is a great way to create a crafted message to boost tourism and inform potential consumers.

Our mission mirrors this same goal along with promoting the advantages of Orlando vacation rentals. We believe there is power in vacation home brands based upon years of positive experiences at these resort communities. We review and profile over 80+ vacation home subdivisions, many located just minutes from area theme parks. Orlando villa reviews give you additional detail and insight for most communities in the area. You typically get all the amenities of home and then some including pools and common area amenities by booking in vacation villa subdivisions. Vacation rentals for many tourists visiting Orlando are now truly preferred over cramped hotels.

Orlando Tourism

We recently sat down with a senior Orlando hospitality executive and were stunned that they had almost no understanding of the “new media” and its impact on tourism.

As an update to our post on Growth Opportunities for Orlando Tourism, the World Bank has cut its 2009 global growth forecast down 1.2% (from a 1.7% decline to a 2.9% decline) .This roiled many financial markets amidst sharp asset price drops.

The wild card among all of this news remains to be high levels of unemployment both domestically and abroad. As we indicated on the last post, forecasts are subject to changes at any time. Unfortunately, the continuing rise in the employment is driving down tourism forecasts.

Assuming these downward forecasts to be accurate, it portends continued weakness or stagnation for Orlando travel and tourism. Although there will be pockets of growth, the Orlando travel market will be challenging for the foreseeable future.

With shrinking tourism budgets, what will the strategy be in this negative travel climate?

Our contention is that all levels of Orlando (and Florida) travel and promotion will need to be innovative and resourceful in getting the message out to maintain market share. Gone are the days of inefficient allocation of expensive resources that reap relatively little direct benefits to area businesses and taxpayers.

From a private sector standpoint, Disney has thankfully opted to provide additional value to area visitors rather than cut services or attractions. This helps improve the value proposition for any potential visitor and increases the chance that tourism volume losses can be kept to a minimum.

We hope to do our part by blogging and podcasting about Orlando travel, and by specifically promoting the benefits of staying in Orlando area vacation homes.

Our belief is the “new media” is one of the most effective means to get the benefits of visiting Orlando out in a targeted way. A good example is the fact the Universal Theme Parks have created a “Vice President of New Media” position to creatively promote its parks. In addition, the new media can be an effective tool for the public/private funded travel promotional areas if it is used in a creative, adaptive and strategic manner.

Orlando Tourism

Although somewhat controversial in its application, national GDP growth is a relative indicator for the health of an underlying macroeconomy. According to EU, OECD and IMF national statistical offices, the following forecasted country growth estimates are applicable for 2009:

• United States – 1.5%
• Canada – 1.2%
• Western and Central Europe – 1.7%
• Mexico – 1.0%
• Brazil 1.0%
• Much of Latin America 0-1+%
• China and India 5-6%

The problem for Orlando travel and tourism growth in 2009 is that the top countries with negative economic growth are the biggest current contributors to Orlando’s baseline level of visitor activity.  

Although projections can change at any time, Latin American economic growth should help stimulate the middle classes in those countries with the benefit of higher discretionary incomes and subsequent increased travel.

Moreover, there will be some pockets of growth and opportunity for Florida travel, but not enough to offset those areas that contribute such a significant amount to the local economy and provide needed resort tax revenues.

Orlando Travel

Today, Orlando tourism leaders looked concerned as they appeared on local news outlets (1) and indicated that hotel room revenue has plummeted. For February 2009, Orlando hotel room revenues were down 28% over February 2008.

We have an unfortunate prediction of our own, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Our interviews with short term rental General Managers and Sales Directors indicate that the number of visitors to Orlando will continue to decline at an accelerated pace over last year’s benchmark. Our only indication that things might begin to trough would be recent consumer spending numbers that do lend a ray of hope for the economy.

We clearly forecasted these declines in previous posts and were criticized for being too pessimistic. Rest assured, this blog has no agenda other than trying to provide clear analysis and opinion for our readers.

Click on any of the links below to see our previous forecasts and analysis:

1. Dire consequences forecast UK market to Orlando 2009
2. Orlando hotels face financial disaster in 2009
3. Orlando hospitality industry faces systemic failure in 2009
4. Short Term Rental Revenue Forecast for Orlando 2009

It’s not pretty for the Orlando economy at the moment, and will most likely get sigificantly worse. However, if you are a tourist visiting Orlando, the rates at hotels and vacation homes have never been a better value.

As we always note, no one can perfectly predict what will happen in the future, including us. As our disclaimer indicates, always consider the authors of this blog to be incompetent.

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The Daily Telegraph, a major newspaper in  in the UK, reported today the UK economy could shrink as much as 10% in 2009 (1). This forecast was not totally dismissed by the Centre for Economics and Business Research also based in the UK who estimated GDP in real terms will decline a more conservative 2.5% (1B) - still a decline of historic proportions.

As we have outlined in a prior post (2), the UK is the largest detached international market feeding the Orlando tourism economy. The impact of a major recession in the UK could wreak havoc on the local short term rental market which includes hotels, vacation homes and timeshare rentals.

The peak travel months for the British to Orlando are June, July and August. The UK is also a big market filler in the early fall when the domestic market for Orlando is relatively slow. Orlando has relied on the British in September to help “fill in the gaps”.

On the bright side, the British and the European Union governments have begun to implement a series of economic stimulus measures on a massive scale (3). The timing and effectiveness of such efforts remains to be seen, but if you live and work in Orlando, the health of the UK economy will most likely effect you.