Tourism mecca Orlando sweats sour economy, high gas prices
Orlando, Fla. — Rene Blanco reaches for his back pocket where the tips go and shakes his head, his hand coming up empty.
“I’ve been here an hour this morning and haven’t made a penny,” said the skycap at Orlando International Airport. “The summer’s been slow. Delta had a whole terminal of those small regional jets, and now they’ve cut back a lot of those flights. And it’s not just Delta. The airlines are getting killed by high fuel prices.”
Skyrocketing gas prices and the sour economy have left tourist destinations around the country feeling the pinch as consumers cut back their discretionary spending, shortening or even canceling vacations.
With its international reputation as a theme park and family vacation haven, Orlando has fared better than most, although some small hotels are reporting drastic drops in business and tourism leaders admit to being worried.
“For the first six months of the year, we held up much better than many other destinations, but we’re not immune to what’s going on in the national economy,” said Gary Sain, president of the Orlando/Orange County Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It’s going to be a challenging fall.”
The bureau’s resort tax collections actually rose year over year for the first six months of 2008, climbing a respectable 4.2 percent. But June’s numbers were down almost 3 percent from the previous year, raising red flags that the continuing economic downturn is starting to take a toll.
“There’s so much pressure on discretionary spending, so much pressure for every dollar,” Sain said. “People are under pressure more today than ever.”
Rising fuel costs prompted several airlines, including Atlanta-based Delta, to announce they are cutting the number of flights to Orlando. About 6,900 seats per day will be cut by this fall, but local leaders are hopeful that won’t be much of a blow.
“We’ll still have more available seats for the fall of ’08 than we had in actual passengers in the fall of ’07,” Sain said. “And the vast majority of the cuts are with the small regional jets flying in from smaller markets. Most people in those markets can still drive to a larger city nearby and fly to Orlando.”
