Orlando's Hotter Than Ever

If there's one factor planners should be aware of when looking at Orlando, it is that the Central Florida city is growing beyond the amusement parks that created it.

Which isn't to say that those parks are passé or even not growing -- both Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando unveil major new theme park areas in a few months, and the Disney Springs nightlife complex is surpassing its Downtown Disney roots -- but the city of Orlando is becoming enough of a draw itself that group planners need no longer think of it as a holding area for a convention center and theme parks. It's becoming a dining and entertainment destination all on its own.

"Several years ago, we really had to show convention planners about dining," says Fred Shea, senior vice president of convention sales and services at Visit Orlando. "Just talking to them now, we don't really have to do that anymore -- and I think that's one of the reasons we had a record year, because they were buying into the future. They are willing to go out -- to Winter Park, down Sand Lake Road, where it seems like new restaurants are opening up every single day. And there has been an explosion of restaurants near the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) and along I-Drive," he added, referring to International Drive, the main road to the convention center.

Universal CityWalk is undergoing what Shea calls a "reinvention of restaurants." Disney Springs is bringing in celebrity chefs like Masaharu Morimoto, Art Smith, and Rick Bayless, an outpost of the high-end New York restaurant Le Cirque joins the likes of Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steak House on I-Drive, just south of the 800-room Rosen Plaza Hotel and OCCC. "We have these layers of restaurants now," Shea says. "You can get a hamburger if you like, or you can go to these really upscale places."

But, he adds, it's not just restaurants that are turning the convention district into a destination even after the exhibit halls shut down. "It's also activities," he notes. "Indoor skydiving is going to open soon, you can go over to the new Topgolf by the convention center, or you can go to a great dinner, or you can go to something fun like Mango's Tropical Café" -- a South Beach import that "is just killing it now," he adds. "You can have great entertainment and be there until 2 in the morning. And because this is in the convention corridor, every one of those facilities is group oriented, so you can get a buyout at any of them. From a meeting planner perspective, it's very turnkey."

Which is helpful when the vast majority of conventions' off-site events are not the 10,000-person groups renting out the Disney or Universal parks, but exhibitors who are entertaining small- to mid-size groups of 25 to 50 people while they're at the show, Shea adds.

"Annual groups can come to the convention center 10 years in a row, and within a very short distance -- so there's very little busing -- can have a different experience every time," Shea says. "That's what's making us so unique in the convention market."

A Better Walking Experience
At 2.1 million square feet, the OCCC may be one of the largest facilities in the country, but despite a capital improvement plan already under way, plans are in the works to expand it even more.

While stressing that nothing has been approved by the county, a visioning plan has been created that will add a couple of hundred thousand square feet of meeting, event, and ballroom space. And in some ways, the work is less about making the OCCC larger than it is making it work more efficiently.

While calling the North-South building "a tremendous trade show facility," Shea admits that it doesn't have enough meeting and ballroom space, and the two sides of that building don't flow as well as they could. The idea is to add a 200,000-square-foot space with arena seating that rolls in and out of the wall for exhibits or general sessions of 12,000 to 15,000 people, as well as new meeting space that will allow attendees to walk completely around the building without going outside, which cannot currently be done. That will be particularly important for large groups that need a lot of meeting space, as the current meeting space is on either end of the North-South building.

In addition, the Hyatt Regency Orlando -- formerly the Peabody Orlando of ducks-in-the-lobby fame -- has a new pedestrian bridge to the convention center opening in May that will connect into the old entrance that the ducks paraded through. That currently underused area will be turned into an indoor marketplace that will cater to attendees.

Beyond that convention center work, there will be a lot of road work to urbanize the area around the center and make it into a neighborhood, if the plan goes through, Shea says.

That's not a goal exclusive to the OCCC, however. I-Drive is getting a similar treatment, with the goal of making it more pedestrian friendly. The core of the area's rebirth is I-Drive 360, a dining and entertainment complex near the convention center that is the setting of the newly branded, 400-foot-high Coca-Cola Orlando Eye observation wheel, as well as SEA LIFE Orlando Aquarium and Madame Tussauds. Large groups can use any or all of those as venues, as well as the large outdoor courtyard.

But, the I-Drive attractions are still set back and somewhat cut off from pedestrians. "Now when you build on I-Drive, you have to build closer to the sidewalk," Shea says, noting that the city wants to move the parking lots that act as a wall between pedestrians and entertainment options. "They are creating some more real streets so that whole area becomes a much better walking-around neighborhood," he adds. "Improving some of the lighting, connecting some of the streets. As you do that, it will attract even more restaurants and venues."

Walt Disney World
While there's a great deal of news coming out of Walt Disney World Resort this spring, the biggest is unquestionably the May 27 opening of Pandora -- The World of Avatar at Disney's Animal Kingdom, inspired by James Cameron's epic, which remains the top-grossing film of all time. A sequel, Avatar 2, is expected to be released in 2018. The 12-acre Pandora attraction, designed in collaboration with Cameron, will have several major attractions, including: Avatar Flight of Passage, a high-tech adventure that will send riders on a mountain banshee, "through the jungles and floating mountains, and over the majestic oceans of this colorful world"; and the Na'vi River Journey, through a glowing rainforest. The attraction will complete Animal Kingdom's transformation from daytime-only into an evening theme park, including a sunset safari. In February, the Animal Kingdom added a new sunset spectacle, Rivers of Light, featuring live performers, lights, water, sound, and music. It takes place in a new, 5,000-seat amphitheater.

On the hotel front, Disney is in the final stage of a $140 million renovation of the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort, including all 2,267 rooms and 329,000 square feet of event space. The 1,190-room Disney's Yacht and Beach Club Resort is set for a 28,000-square-foot expansion that will increase its total meeting and event space to 100,000 square feet. Disney's Coronado Springs Resort is working on a new 500-room hotel tower, as well as renovations including the addition of a boardroom and two meeting venues to its current 220,000 square feet of meeting and event space. A new rooftop restaurant and lounge offers fireworks views.

Universal
On May 25, Universal Orlando Resort is opening its third theme park, the 30-acre Universal's Volcano Bay. The water park will feature a dozen attractions, including the Krakatau Aqua Coaster at Volcano Bay, with four-person canoe rides through the volcano; the Ko'okiri Body Plunge's 70-degree, 125-foot waterslide; the Kala & Tai Nui Serpentine Body Slides, a pair of clear, intertwining slide tubes down the side of the volcano; and TeAwa The Fearless River, as well as tamer rides. Attendees will be provided with waterproof TapuTapu wearable devices used to make reservations and manage their place in the rides' virtual lines.

Another new immersive attraction, Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon, is set in Universal Studios Florida Theme Park's New York-themed area and invites guests to join the Tonight Show's studio audience on the ultimate race through the streets -- and skies -- of New York City.

Universal Orlando and Loews Hotels and Resorts are adding a new property to the park, the 600-room Universal's Aventura Hotel, scheduled for completion in 2018, featuring a rooftop bar. It will bring the total number of on-site guest rooms to 6,200.

Other Hotel and Venue News
SeaWorld Orlando has several new additions, starting with the transformation of the Kraken floorless roller coaster into a virtual-reality experience, taking guests on a deep sea mission. A new sunset spectacle, Electric Ocean, is a festival of lights, music, performers, and sea life that immerses attendees in exotic underwater worlds. A new Dolphin Days show is replacing the Blue Horizons show after an 11-year run.

New properties coming include the Margaritaville Resort Orlando, opening in late 2017. It will be a 187-room waterfront destination resort featuring a new dining and entertainment district, as well as a 12-acre water park. In Downtown Orlando, a new 54-room boutique property, The Delaney Hotel, will open by late spring.

The AAA Four Diamond Rosen Shingle Creek Golf Club has reopened after a redesign by the Arnold Palmer Design Company -- work that was done in large part because of the need to redesign several holes to make way for a major new expansion that will include the addition of 250,000 square feet of convention space -- on top of the existing 490,000 square feet -- as well as a guest tower with at least 600 rooms, additional restaurants, and a new pool and lazy river.

The Rosen Plaza, with more than 60,000 square feet of meeting space, has a new nightclub, 3NINE, designed with meeting and special event buyouts in mind. The hotel is also home to Zadye's Kosher Catering, a high-end kosher kitchen -- actually three kitchens, one for meat, one for dairy, and one for non-meat or dairy -- that can prepare kosher food certified by the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinate of Central Florida. The kitchen's meals are served both on- and off-site under supervision. That means it can not only feed kosher groups, but it can prepare kosher meals for attendees that won't come plastic-wrapped in a take-out container while everyone else in the ballroom is eating off fine china.

The Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate is undergoing a $40 million expansion that will add 93 guest rooms to the existing 769, expand the current 128,000 square feet of meeting space, and add 100,000 square feet of outdoor space and a wave pool.

The Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center has wrapped up a $4.2 million renovation at its Cypress Springs Water Park, adding a twin FlowRider surfing simulator as well as three new waterslides.   

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This article appears in the April 2017 issue of Successful Meetings.