Robert Silk
It seems almost trivial to wonder whether the massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando last week could affect the tourism landscape of the central Florida city.
But given the Orlando area’s reliance on travel and tourism — the destination welcomed 66.1 million visitors and sold 33 million hotel room nights in 2015 — it’s a topic that is no doubt on the minds of anyone connected to the travel industry.
And reports by media outlets, including CNN, that gunman Omar Mateen conducted what authorities have labeled surveillance trips at the Disney Springs shopping and entertainment complex this month before ultimately doing his killing at the Pulse nightclub near downtown Orlando only serves to further connect this heinous event to Orlando’s tourism landscape.
For now, Visit Orlando isn’t saying much on the question of whether they’re concerned about the city’s image as stories from Pulse beam across the globe. But in the relatively brief statement the tourism bureau put out on the matter Tuesday, it presented a brave face.
“The outpouring of support from across the globe, the robust efforts from law enforcement and our commitment to providing a safe environment to visitors gives us confidence that we will remain a destination of choice for visitors,” Visit Orlando CEO George Aguel said in the prepared remark.
Surely, that’s true. Orlando will remain a top destination, even if the massacre does create a short-term blip in tourism.
“People may adjust their plans because of it, but I think it would be short-lived,” Lori Pennington-Gray, the director of the Tourism Crisis Management Institute at the University of Florida told me this week.
But she also said that travelers to Orlando are likely to be more demanding of information than in the past.
“I think that people will want to see and hear that there is more security in all places,” Pennington-Gray said.
In response to what was already a growing sense of vulnerability among the traveling and general public, theme parks around Orlando had stepped up security even before Sunday’s mass shooting.
Disney, Universal and SeaWorld added metal detectors and increased the number of security guards last December in the wake of the attacks in Paris and San Bernadino. I had to pass through them when I visited Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios in April.
Disney Springs, however, wasn’t protected by metal detectors when I visited there on the same trip.
Time will tell if that’s about to change. Disney didn’t respond to an inquiry I made about security at the shopping complex Tuesday.
Time and future events will also tell whether people, especially those from abroad, do begin to travel less to mega-U.S. destinations like Orlando and its theme parks due to fear.