Orlando hotel occupancy dips in 2024, influenced by inflation, inventory, Epic Universe
Orlando’s hotel occupancy was down for the bulk of 2024, as it added more hotel rooms and attracted fewer visitors.
But the area’s 130,000 rooms saw a surge in bookings in the final three months of the year, so the annual occupancy rate was down only 1.1% from 2023 and at 71.6 % still considered good.
The factors behind the decreases and the rebound are multifold, hospitality experts say. Among them are the pandemic, “revenge travel,” inflation, strength of the U.S. dollar and basic math.
Also playing a role in last year’s figures is this year’s opening of Epic Universe theme park — which may have would-be travelers waiting until 2025 to visit Orlando, they say.
In early 2024, there were large additions to the hotel-room inventory in Orange County, said Chantal Wu, senior director, hospitality and market analytics at CoStar, which collects real-estate data.
Evermore Orlando, with more than 300 rooms, and Conrad Orlando, with 433 units, opened in January, Wu said.
“It takes some time for the market to absorb all of the new supply,” she said.
The occupancy rate for January 2024 was 72.0%, a decrease of 0.9% from the previous year, according to the STR Report, a publication of CoStar Group. The rate for February was 80.2%, a drop of 2.3%.
That wasn’t surprising since adding rooms without increasing the number of visitors results in a lower occupancy rate, Wu said, and last year economic factors sent vacationers looking elsewhere.
“The dollar was very strong. It is still very strong now,” she said. “So a lot of the domestic tourists, they actually choose to visit international destinations.”
Travel to Orlando was strong in 2023, part of the pent-up, post-pandemic trend that had people eager to book vacations.
“A lot of it was people did their revenge travel after the pandemic and then just went elsewhere” in 2024, said Len Testa, who runs Touring Plans, a vacation-planning site. Last year was a strong year for the cruise industry in Port Canaveral and Miami, he said.
“So, people were going to Florida – just not Central Florida,” Testa said.
Monthly occupancy declines continued in the traditionally busy spring-summer season and through September, which saw a 63.8% occupancy rate, a drop of 3.7% from the previous year.
Revenue per available room, a key metric known as RevPAR, followed a similar pattern in 2024.
“I think people were feeling the pinch of inflation,” said Kevin Murphy, a professor for the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida.
Occupancy rates moved into positive territory — up 2.3% — for the first time of the year in October, and experienced 4% rises in both November and December.
“People were cautious about doing vacations earlier in the year,” Wu said. “They realize, ‘Oh yeah, we haven’t done anything. Let’s do something around Christmas’.”
Group travel also has been rebounding, Murphy said.
“Conventions have come back. They were really impacted by COVID and the pandemic and the advent of Zoom,” he said.
“It just kind of settled back to normal,” Murphy said. “I mean, the occupancy rates weren’t horrible — around 70% — so, still good occupancy rates.”
The Orange County Tourist Development Tax collections showed similar end-of-year trends. November saw a 7.1% increase from the previous year. That $31.8 million was the highest on record, according to the county.
The outlook for 2025 revolves around the May 22 opening of Epic Universe, Universal Orlando’s third theme park, which is under construction near the Orange County Convention Center.
Universal is adding three hotels near the new attraction, including the 750-room Stella Nova, which opened in mid-January. Neighboring Terra Luna and its 750 rooms are scheduled to follow suit in late March, while the 500-room Grand Helios will open with the theme park in May.
“A lot of theme-park people know that Epic Universe is opening up, so perhaps they didn’t come to Orlando last year because they know Epic is opening up this year,” Murphy said.
Folks may take their time with vacation planning again this year, Wu said, even with the Epic Universe factor.
“Maybe you’re not going to see a very quick shift in demand patterns just because folks are still waiting because they’re not sure if the new attraction is worth it,” she said. “Or maybe they want to wait for the kinks to be worked out.”
The economy remains a question mark and could impact lower-income families’ plans, Wu said.
Even if the occupancy rate is flat in 2025, it will benefit Universal Orlando, which will have a bigger slice of the pie, Murphy said. The Epic resorts will bring Universal Orlando’s total to 11 hotels with 11,000 rooms. Universal’s hotels are co-owned with Loews Hotels.
“It’s a win, because it’s another source of revenue generation, just like the park is another source of revenue generation,” Murphy said.
It’s a model long used by Walt Disney World, developed after Walt Disney was unhappy about hoteliers building across the street from Disneyland in California. Having on-property hotel options, it’s believed, encourages guests to stay (and spend) nearby. But Disney has been building fewer hotels, opting to introduce more time-share units, Testa said.
“They’re a little bit insulated from having to sell cash hotel rooms because of Disney Vacation Club,” he said.
Disney World has added two hotels in the past decade or so, he said: Art of Animation and the Grand Testino Tower at Coronado Springs, Testa said.
The full Epic effect remains to be seen.
“Does it also raise attendance at other parks? Or does it draw away from them? Does it raise overall visitation to Orlando? Does it raise overall occupancy rates?” Murphy said. “Those will be interesting things to see.”