ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – The Central Florida Hotel and Lodging Association and CareerSource Central Florida on Monday will host its first State of The Hospitality and Tourist Summit, providing an update on the industry in Central Florida.
Industry leaders from UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management, Loews Hotels, Hyatt Regency Orlando, and the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority attended the event.
“We all know that visitors are the economic driver for our region’s economy creating jobs for our local residents,” said Robert Agrusa, President CEO of Central Florida Hotel and Lodging Association.
Nilda Blanco with CareerSource Central Florida explained there were 74 million visitors in 2022, a 25% increase over 2021.
“During COVID, we were at home kind of saying what’s going on. Our construction crews were building like crazy so we had some great boom and you see that in hotels, we had a 29% growth over 10 years but interesting enough, in the last two years, that was 14% alone,” Blanco said.
The summit also comes after the Tourist Development Tax Collections fell again in November, marking the seventh decrease in revenue in the last eight months.
On Monday, leaders also discussed bringing in more workers to the industry and improving high school programs in the region.
“I think this workforce challenge is something we have to continue all of those pathways in our industry and educating those in our industry,” Dr. Cynthia Mejia of UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management said.
A new report commissioned by Tourism Economics, LLC shows that Central Florida’s tourism industry hit a record economic impact of $87.6 billion in 2022, marking a notable 31% rise from 2021, according to the press release from CareerSource Central Florida.
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