Orlando had 72 million visitors last year, making it the top tourism destination in the U.S.—but also raising questions about what that means. The total was 5% up from last year, and included 65.86 million U.S. visitors and 6.15 million from other countries.
But Orlando is also a case for how hard it is to validate claims of Top Ten status in the industry, with numbers based largely on factors such as hotel occupancy, paid admissions, and airport arrivals. And, there’s the business visitor question.
The Orange County Convention Center had 1.53 million attendees at events, and many large hotels in the area, including at Disney, are also major convention and business destinations. They count as visitors, even if they have no tourism activities. If a family stays days at a hotel near Disney and then moves to a hotel near Universal Studios, each family member is counted twice—and that’s a common scenario.
Those factors also affect numbers in other places, including those that are not as focused on leisure as Orlando is. Cities at the top of the lists of international destinationsm, such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, London, Paris and New York have an even higher percentage of business travelers. In some cases, Iceland in point, figures have included people arriving on one plane and promptly leaving on a new flight to another destination.
In short, when you read the endless stories listing the Top Ten or Fifty, you’re not likely to be reading lies—but nor are you really likely to be able to tell what’s an orange and what’s an apple…or even a Big Apple.
