Walt Disney World has acquired more land in Osceola County according to property records. A filing last week revealed Disney paid $11 million for an additional 1,500 acres of land. The land Disney purchased belonged to the estate of Frank E. Brown, the son of… Read More »Walt Disney World acquires 1,500 more acres in Osceola County
The word Margaritaville conjures up a certain lifestyle involving Hawaiian shirts, flip flops, and long periods of doing nothing on the beach — basically a state of permanent vacation embodied by Jimmy Buffet’s music. It’s also a chain of restaurants and soon will be a… Read More »Margaritaville Resort Orlando sets grand opening date
Escape Rooms are the latest thing to hit Orlando. You and a few friends are co-workers are locked in a room and you have to use teamwork and mental acuity to escape within the time given (usually 1 hour). To be 100% honest, I wasn’t… Read More »Escapology – Orlando’s new real life escape game
I did something last week that I haven’t done in fifteen years: I went to Gatorland. Now, I know it’s not Disney World and I’ll be honest, you usually have to drag me kicking and screaming from Disney property, but I was part of a group that was invited for a private tour so how could I turn that down? It didn’t hurt that my boss took me there in this sweet ride.
Yes, it’s that car. But in fairness, I was coaxed off of property with the promise of barbeque as well, so it’s not like I could say no. I take barbeque very seriously.Read More »A True Central Florida Experience: Gatorland.
It was “The Town That Disney Built” drawing the talents of the worlds best architects and urban planners, and then 350 lucky families who became the first residents and modern day pioneers of new urbanism. Now with more than 9,000 Celebration residents it’s time, once… Read More »Town of Celebration, Fl Celebrates 15 Years With Founders Day, Taste of Celebration
The Vacation Lodge Motel, near Disney’s Animal Kingdom, on the 192 caught fire around 10:45pm last night and is still burning strong right now. All three wings of the sprawling motel have burned to the ground, displacing 150 guests. Although it was an operating motel,… Read More »Massive Motel Fire near Disney World Closes 192, Injures 12
Even though I was giving myself a little holiday from the blog this weekend, two stories caught my eye. The first was an Orlando Sentinel story on the flat attendance at Walt Disney World. I have to think that given the poor state of the… Read More »Disney World Flat, Kissimmee Depressed and Depressing
Merchants and business owners along Highway 192 in Osceola County have finally decided to get their act together. Prior to the latest economic meltdown, I wrote about signs of life in Central Florida’s most neglected tourist region. As you might guess, those improvements have been given back and the trend points even more down hill these days.
However the newly formed 192 Business Alliance has a plan to turn that around. The region will adopt a theme of…
“Orange Central” by painting the curbs or sidewalks orange. The theme would continue with a new public-transportation option consisting of two orange-colored shuttle buses. A new Web site would promote the area, and businesses would support the initiative with things like orange mints in their lobbies.
The 192 Business Alliance, the newly formed nonprofit group that drew up the plan, said something must be done, and quickly, to revive the sagging tourist strip west of Kissimmee. “We could have shuttle service here by spring break,” Brisson said. “We need something easy. We need something fast.”
It’s a good start, perhaps mints in the lobby is all that can be afforded in these times, but there are a few cracks in the plan.
Included in the strategy is a plan to build a sports complex focused on drawing amateur competition to the area. I’m a little skeptical of this idea. Have they not heard of ESPN’s Wide World of Sports? Disney is bound to take the lion share of the amateur sports business. That is ESPN WWOS’ whole focus and they can offer the ESPN brand and Disney magic, something Kissimmee can never match.
Perhaps the 192 Business Alliance is thinking that they would attract sports teams who would travel to central Florida and not compete on Disney property, but still package a vacation with their tournament by offering them a cheaper price for the same quality facilities, just without the ESPN experience. That could work, but I don’t see it as being a big driver, if it was, existing regional amateur sports facilities would be full already. Maybe they have a study that says differently.
Moving in on sports instead of convention business is an interesting angle, however think they need to be more ambitious. The name “Orange Central” is neither catchy, nor descriptive. Nobody is going to say, “let’s go down to Orange Central and see what’s going on.” But they’re on the right track, 192 does need better branding.
Follow me below the jump for a few more suggestions for the 192 Business Alliance and the Osceola County government to get moving on.