The third hotel for Celebration and second hotel from the Mona Lisa Development, the U.S. affiliate of Mona Lisa Hotels and Residences of France, has just been announced. There’s speculation that 400 additional acres could find a Four-Seasons hotel and golf resort on it soon. The land for these developments was sold off by the Disney owned Celebration Co.
I’m actually a little amazed that it’s taken this long for Celebration, the town that Disney built, to expand into a resort destination. It’s located just across the highway from Walt Disney World on what was technically a part of the original land purchase made by Walt Disney himself. It’s a beautiful resort themed city already, and with a little work on the downtown infrastructure could host three times as many visitors as it does now.
I can hear the town’s residents gathering pitchforks to storm this blog right now. But frankly, I don’t know how they expect anything else. When you have paradise, people will want a piece of it. If you play your cards right you can practically fund the town off the tourist revenue these hotels and resorts can bring in (see Las Vegas). Plus hotels, even hotel-condos such as these, won’t put any additional strain on the education infrastructure. It’s a win-win situation.