Orlando Announces Record 75 Million Visitors, Solidifies Ranking as No. 1 U.S. Travel Destination

(Left to right) Adrian Jones, Visit Orlando Board Chair and Divisional Director USA, Merlin Entertainments USA Inc.; Orange County Mayor Jerry L. Demings; and George Aguel, President and CEO, Visit Orlando; celebrate a record 75 million visitors to Orlando in 2018.

Celebrates International Gains Despite Economic and Political Headwinds

ORLANDO, Fla. – Tourism officials announced today a historic milestone for the U.S. travel industry as Orlando released news of a record-setting 75 million annual visitors in 2018. The increase of 4.2% over the prior year once again solidifies Orlando’s lead position as America’s most-visited destination. 

Visit Orlando, the region’s official destination tourism and marketing organization, shared the news as part of National Travel & Tourism Week to a gathering of more than 1,000 tourism and community leaders.

A Tour of Florida From the 2018 Florida Governor's Conference on Tourism

Perhaps this won't qualify as our meatiest post ever, but it stands solid as a worthy snippet to use as a sort of announcement and "teaser" if you will.

Last week, we attended the 2018 Florida Governor's Conference on Tourism at the Omni Resort. Although we were only able to make it for one day of the three-day event, there was a remarkable amount of knowledge and connection to be made in that brief visit!

The Florida Governor's Conference on Tourism featured a fantastic array of speakers and educational tracks of great value to members of the hospitality and tourism industry - most notably, in marketing and customer outreach. We explored the changing profile of today's Florida traveler, the incoming generation of travelers, evolving trends, emerging businesses, and much more. Perhaps most importantly, we explored our beautiful state from a centralized gathering of like-minded people who all have a vested interest in continuing to perfect our travel game overall.

This was our first time attending the Governor's Conference, and we were so impressed and inspired by the knowledge we gained at the event that we decided to share some fun with you! For quite a while now, we've been expanding our reach to report news from other popular destinations, and lesser-known spots as well. From time to time, we even venture out for firsthand feature reports from locations "Beyond Orlando" (as we call this segment of coverage). Thanks to some handy new info we gathered at the Governor's Conference, we've selected a few of the locations that really caught our attention, and we're going to explore them a bit more. While this little mini-project is still in the planning stages, we do want to share the list of locations with you now.

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE..........

Stay tuned for more details on our developing "Tour of Florida" - which could certainly grow to include other locations in the future. If you happen to be located in or near one of our current featured spots, we would love to talk to you as an expert consultant as well. Email dawn@comeseeorlando.com with your location in the subject line, and let's chat today!