Area hotel occupancy is down 2.8 percent so far in 2006, while the other top 25 markets for Smith Travel Research saw a 1.8 percent total increase. With around 50 million annual visitors contributing an estimated $28 billion in yearly spending, the home of Walt Disney World and other huge theme parks is the top tourist spot in a huge tourism state.<\/p>\n
But so far this year room demand is down almost 4 percent, Orlando Convention and Visitors Bureau president Bill Peeper told a gathering of hotel representatives.<\/p>\n
“The aspiration to come to Orlando is not as strong as it has been in the past,” Peeper said. “It does not appear to be a crisis situation, but we need to begin to figure out how we re-energize Orlando’s brand.”<\/p>\n
Part of the problem is that tourists don’t perceive the city as particularly relaxing, a quality more are seeking out of vacations, Peeper said. <\/p>\n
The area also spends tens of millions less on advertising than places like Las Vegas, which along with New York, Mexico and the Caribbean are among the top competitors.<\/p>\n
There is some good news for Orlando on that front. Offi-cials last week approved a penny increase in hotel taxes, allowing local tourism promoters a $30 million ad budget. <\/p>\n
The Nassau Guardian<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fewer people this year are staying in hotels around central Florida’s mega-tourist draws, and the area could lose more without stepped up advertising<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}