Orlando tourism stays strong despite horrific week: report

Despite a week of horrific news out of Orlando, U.S.-based travel agents are not seeing mass cancellations to the popular family vacation destination, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

Three heinous and grim events shook Orlando this past week: the mass murder of 49 people at Pulse, an Orlando-based gay nightclub (which marked the largest mass shooting in U.S. history), the fatal shooting of pop singer Christina Grimmie (known for her participation in the televised singing competition The Voice) and a two-year-old killed by an alligator at a Disney World resort lagoon.

Orlando is one of the United States' top tourist destinations, with 66 million people visiting the central Florida city in 2015.

“I had more people worrying last year about, ‘Should I postpone my trip because of Ebola?’” than are worried about going to Orlando, Cindy Minor, owner of Small World Big Fun, a travel agency specializing in Disney vacations based in Little Rock, Ark., told the AP in a story published by the Detroit Free Press.

In the same story, Kim Gray, a travel agent based in North Olmsted, Ohio, told the AP that the “awful events have had no impact on our Disney or Orlando sales thus far. We have had no cancellations to Disney World.”

The AP reports that George Aguel, CEO for Visit Orlando, has confirmed that Orlando has “not seen indications of change to our visitors’ plans,” adding that “safety remains a top priority.”

The increased presence of security in Orlando is giving some travellers a peace of mind, the AP reports. Jennifer Galluzzo of Brewster, N.Y., is travelling to Orlando in July with her three children. “It’s likely going to be safer than ever there now,” Galluzzo told the AP.

Ray Bromley, a teacher in regional planning at the State University of New York at Albany, predicts that Orlando’s hotels and attractions will offer discounts over the next year to make up for any potential loss in tourism, the AP reports.

If anything, Orlando’s tourism industry will take a hit of five to 15 per cent over the next year, Bromley said.

Orlando’s reputation as a bucket list destination, combined with the fact that so many families plan trips there well in advance, is also expected to keep the city’s tourism scene going strong.

Orlando is “an aspirational destination where people say, ‘I have got to get to Orlando once in my lifetime,’ and this kind of disruption will not taint that,” Helen Marano, senior vice president of the World Travel & Tourism Council, told the AP.