Universal Orlando Resort Expansion (Part 1)

[UniversalRBLX]

So the key to building/expanding parks is the Olympics...?

....so when does Orlando host them...lol

 

[Blue]

So the key to building/expanding parks is the Olympics...?

....so when does Orlando host them...lol

I was thinking the same thing

It's such a strange coincidence that the next three Summer Games will all be in cities with a Disneyland. Shanghai 2032?

 

[IAmFloridaBorn]

All of these new parks are surely going to hurt Orlando's numbers at some point it seems. People dont come here for weather, downtown, the beach, or winter park. IDK. Hope Orlando can still be a draw in the long run.

 

[JungleSkip]

All of these new parks are surely going to hurt Orlando's numbers at some point it seems. People dont come here for weather, downtown, the beach, or winter park. IDK. Hope Orlando can still be a draw in the long run.

People from Beijing weren't travelling to Orlando.

 

[IAmFloridaBorn]

People from Beijing weren't travelling to Orlando.

It doesn't matter. Over time people will have more options for destinations. Not sure Orlando can hold up. But If they are building more parks in Florida I guess it can. I just don't understand how Orlando can keep drawing over 60 Million people a year....

 

[zg44]

Orlando will be the entertainment/theme park capital of the Eastern Americas-Western Europe for a long, long time to come.

Even with large scale investments in Atlanta, Paris, London, and others, Orlando will remain the choice destination for family vacations.

Orlando can grow tourism at a steady rate for the next 30-40 years in my opinion.

Universal and Disney are investing because they see that opportunity to continue to grow the market.

Universal has just begun to scratch the surface over the past decade.

Universal can grow its attendance at least 50-70% from here with a 3rd park, and Disney won't suffer for it.

 

[IAmFloridaBorn]

Orlando will be the entertainment/theme park capital of the Eastern Americas-Western Europe for a long, long time to come.

Even with large scale investments in Atlanta, Paris, London, and others, Orlando will remain the choice destination for family vacations.

Orlando can grow tourism at a steady rate for the next 30-40 years in my opinion.

Universal and Disney are investing because they see that opportunity to continue to grow the market.

Universal has just begun to scratch the surface over the past decade.

Universal can grow its attendance at least 50-70% from here with a 3rd park, and Disney won't suffer for it.

I hope you are right. I find it extremely difficult to believe when the city isn't putting money into infrastructure and transportation. That $2Billion airport expansion should help but this city can not handle the additional 250,000 - 500,000 people here today and that number will grow. Just don't see it all coming together but hopefully things will change

 

[ragerunner]

I hope you are right. I find it extremely difficult to believe when the city isn't putting money into infrastructure and transportation. That $2Billion airport expansion should help but this city can not handle the additional 250,000 - 500,000 people here today and that number will grow. Just don't see it all coming together but hopefully things will change

Currently the region is spending over 2 billion on I-4 and 100s of million more on 408, the turnpike through orlando, the competion of 429 and the beachline. Also add in the expansion of the brightline rail coming to the airport. Seems like they are doing a lot.

Within the next 10 year autonomous vehicles are going to affect our cities and infrastructure in a big way. Road networks will be able to handle significant more vehicles as human drivers a removed from the equation.

 

[GadgetGuru]

Orlando will be the entertainment/theme park capital of the Eastern Americas-Western Europe for a long, long time to come.

Even with large scale investments in Atlanta, Paris, London, and others, Orlando will remain the choice destination for family vacations.

Orlando can grow tourism at a steady rate for the next 30-40 years in my opinion.

Universal and Disney are investing because they see that opportunity to continue to grow the market.

Universal has just begun to scratch the surface over the past decade.

Universal can grow its attendance at least 50-70% from here with a 3rd park, and Disney won't suffer for it.

I think the market will become saturated. Orlando just can't scale enough. Most of the theme park jobs are service jobs that don't pay well. There's only so much of a market for that kind of work. Right now, we're seeing Disney + Universal start to have difficulty hiring. If Universal's tourism goes up 50% (without impacting Disney), that's a lot of new people coming to Orlando. That means a lot of new hotels, new restaurants, new shopping, etc for those people to use/visit. There just isn't enough workers to support that.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Universal’s new site also provides an incentive for the city to come up with an efficient transportation system thru out the tourist areas and improve international drive.

 

[IAmFloridaBorn]

Currently the region is spending over 2 billion on I-4 and 100s of million more on 408, the turnpike through orlando, the competion of 429 and the beachline. Also add in the expansion of the brightline rail coming to the airport. Seems like they are doing a lot.

Within the next 10 year autonomous vehicles are going to affect our cities and infrastructure in a big way. Road networks will be able to handle significant more vehicles as human drivers a removed from the equation.

I know what the city is doing.
SunRail and Brightline have NOTHING to do with Universal though.
I4 is still going to be a failure. You can keep expanding roads all you want, it will never solve or alleviate the issue, not even a little bit.

Anyway I dont want to venture too far off from Universal Epansion. I'm just irritated city of Orlando isn't doing more for the tourist district like the county is trying too. ( Since current Universal is in city limits)

Anyway, here is hope that these projects lead to better tourism zones, better pedestrian standards, and smoother inter connectivity among transit points in the city

 

[Imperius]

Universal is about to get interesting it seems. :look:

 

[IAmFloridaBorn]

I was wondering. With the Wet N Wild Hotels going up relatively fast for 2019, I'd love to see them jump into resorts on the new properties and catch some of the Star Wars and Convention Center crowds for 2019/2020 as well!

 

[IAmFloridaBorn]

Universal’s new site also provides an incentive for the city to come up with an efficient transportation system thru out the tourist areas and improve international drive.

This essentially is what I am arguing for in Universal's (and tourist districts) favor.
There was suppose to be connectivity 2 times in last 25 years and both have not come to fruition.
Well Universal is proving to be a real serious player in city growth as well, so, hoping that all starts to fall in place for our tourist district.

 

[zg44]

I think the market will become saturated. Orlando just can't scale enough. Most of the theme park jobs are service jobs that don't pay well. There's only so much of a market for that kind of work. Right now, we're seeing Disney + Universal start to have difficulty hiring. If Universal's tourism goes up 50% (without impacting Disney), that's a lot of new people coming to Orlando. That means a lot of new hotels, new restaurants, new shopping, etc for those people to use/visit. There just isn't enough workers to support that.

It's tough to say what will happen on the infrastructure front and employment fronts; Orlando's still a pretty fast growing metro and the influx of people from Puerto Rico (north of 200,000) should help to prevent short-term issues.

I do think Universal and Disney can continue to drive demand for vacations in that market with the massive upgrades planned.

Let's just assume that foreign visitation to Orlando will grow in parallel to the growth of the theme parks: The latest numbers for 2016 Orlando visitation is 68 million visitors with OIA having 42 million airline passenger arrivals.

2016 (from TEA/AECOM, yeah I know they're not great estimates, but for percentage increases these numbers are useful)
Disney
MK: 20.4 million
Epcot: 11.7 million
AK: 10.8 million
DHS: 10.8 million

Universal
USF: 10 million
IoA: 9.4 million

SeaWorld
SWO: 4.4 million

Let's just use those numbers (ignore the water parks for now since we're just using percentage increases and those don't really matter for this calculation).

So 2016 theme park visitors in aggregate among the 3 operators = 77.5 million (the number of aggregate park entries basically)

Okay now fast forward to 2040 (this is the "Highest Growth Scenario" in my opinion):
Disney (expansions go well and DHS becomes the 2nd most popular behind Star Wars Land/Toy Story Land)
MK: 22 million
Epcot: 15 million
AK: 14 million
DHS: 16 million

Universal (Park #3 does so well, so quickly, that they greenlight a 4th dry park by 2030-2035 + dramatic increase in hotel rooms creates huge increases across the board)
USF: 15 million
IoA: 14 million
Park #3: 14 million
Park #4: 12 million

SeaWorld (reorganize their finances, and manage to solidify themselves as a cost effective regional alternative)
SWO: 6 million

"Highest Growth Scenario": So 2040 theme park visitors in aggregate among the 3 operators = 128 million (the number of aggregate park entries basically)

Okay, that's basically a 65% increase from 2016.

A 65% increase in overall visitation means Orlando would get 112.2 million visitors with OIA having 69 million airline passenger arrivals in 2040.

Basically yes, there would need to be dramatic increases in infrastructure to account for those things, but a lot will change between now and then as others have mentioned. Driver-less cars and things like that will all be in place by 2040, and there will likely be other changes that we can't really imagine at the current point in time.

I would just use that 2040 "Highest Growth Scenario" to show that if both Disney and Universal grow to their maximum what the total numbers would look like for visitation and airline arrivals in Orlando.

 

[ragerunner]

I know what the city is doing.
SunRail and Brightline have NOTHING to do with Universal though.
I4 is still going to be a failure. You can keep expanding roads all you want, it will never solve or alleviate the issue, not even a little bit.

Anyway I dont want to venture too far off from Universal Epansion. I'm just irritated city of Orlando isn't doing more for the tourist district like the county is trying too. ( Since current Universal is in city limits)

Anyway, here is hope that these projects lead to better tourism zones, better pedestrian standards, and smoother inter connectivity among transit points in the city

The county should be doing a lot since most of the tourist zone is in Orange county.

It sounds like you feel they are doing some great stuff for the tourist area and transportation. I would like to hear more about what they are doing?

Also your response ignored the autonomous vehicle comments. If you are in the transportation industry you should know that is going to revolutionize our built environment over the next 10-15 years and increase our current road capacity in a major way.

 

[Mad Dog]

Studies though sometimes/often get it wrong. Studies were guessing that Uber/Lyft would decrease road traffic. The Reality though, shows that road traffic has increased in urban areas where Uber & Lyft have a large presence. And, proportionately, less people are using mass public transportation due to the Uber/Lyft usage in those areas. So, be careful predicting something that may not happen the way industry participants, who have vested interests, say they will.

 

[IAmFloridaBorn]

The county should be doing a lot since most of the tourist zone is in Orange county.

It sounds like you feel they are doing some great stuff for the tourist area and transportation. I would like to hear more about what they are doing?

Also your response ignored the autonomous vehicle comments. If you are in the transportation industry you should know that is going to revolutionize our built environment over the next 10-15 years and increase our current road capacity in a major way.

I didn't ignore your autonomous part. I simply have no knowledge to accurately challenge that statement but I have an opinion which wouldn't have added value. I can say hope it works out and I know Orlando would like to be apart of it. Orlando has very ambitious plans for the autonomous industry.

Transportation is a major issue in many American cities because cities just do what their sister or brother cities due and it has not worked. Orlando has the benefit of sprawl which reduces urban vibrancy and cosmopolitan opportunity in a central environment. For any city that doesn't get nearly 70 Million visitors and has 2 million residents, that doesnt work at all. It's Orlando's advantage to shoot for some new urban transit methods or 'simple' transit connections to jump on the increased tourism records year after year. The Airport is doing so but the airport is essentially it's own governed little city. I Am in hopes with Universal actually doing something on that land, that the IDrive Circulator, Flex Buses, Light Rail Line can actually get moving. This Helps Universal, help Orlando, help Orange County, help Central Florida's overall togetherness. A Rail line from International Drive/Convention Center to the airport is first.

I'm not insider but it only makes sense Universal knows those plans are in place and could already be working with city and county officials to fastrack plans. So While their are proposals that are exciting, I just want to see city of Orlando get the kick start off with Universal gaining SERIOUS momentum in increasing International Drive foot traffic and people traffic.

 

[IAmFloridaBorn]

We need a theme park economics thread lol.

 

[jseal777]

Orlando’s getting into the driverless car game?


“Hop into the the Optimus Prius and enter your desired address. It should be a pleasant drive this evening. UNTIL SOMETHING GOES TERRIBLY WRONG.”