Cruel Summer for Orlando Hotels

A few random thoughts to close out a busy week…

• The summer tourist season was a tough one for Orlando, the nation’s second-biggest hotel market. According to a report by the Orlando Sentinel, only 58% of the market’s 112,000 rooms were filled in August, marking the worst month since Smith Travel Research started keeping track in 1987.

Huge discounts and other special offers didn’t help, with room rates down 14% over the year to around $76 per night. Theme parks won’t disclose how many people came through their turnstiles, though they did seem less crowded and the wait times for rides and attractions were shorter.

That’s all the more reason for Orlando to diversify its economy to include financial services, aviation and biotech. You can read about those efforts in the latest issue of Real Estate Florida.

• Speaking of tourism, Winter Haven’s best-known attraction has taken yet another hit from the flagging economy. Cypress Gardens abruptly shut down operations this week, marking its third closing in the past six years. (Check out this report by The Ledger.)

It really hurts to see this traditional theme park suffer, especially after having survived the wave of themers that have come to Central Florida since the early 1970s when Disney World opened. The ski shows, Southern belles and other sights were plenty of entertainment for tourists seeking a slower pace.

The current owners of Cypress Gardens are looking for another operator to come in, but that’s a tough order in this economy. At the same time, no one is licking their chops over redevelopment possibilities for the 150-acre site. We’ll wait and see what happens.

• While Central Florida is facing tourist doldrums, Jacksonville has retained one of its key visitor draws for the next several years. The annual college football showdown between the Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs will remain at Alltel Stadium through 2016 under a contract extension signed this week.

That’s a lot of hotel rooms that will be filled in northeast Florida as well as southeast Georgia. They used to call the game the “World’s Largest Cocktail Party,” but that image has been toned down somewhat in recent years. (Oh, you’ll still find plenty to drink among the tailgate parties.)

There was talk earlier about moving the game to Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, which has a smaller seating capacity. But it wouldn’t be the same anywhere else than Jax.

• Here’s proof that some of us might not have enough to worry about lately: Controversy has erupted over a prominent building featured in CBS promos for “CSI: Miami” because it is not actually located in Miami.

Rivergate Tower, a cylindrical office building in Tampa, is certainly an interesting structure even if it isn’t part of Miami’s glitzy skyline. The fact of the matter is that no one else watching CBS across the country would know the difference, but other cities get a little defensive about these things because many people actually believe there isn’t much more to Florida beyond Miami.

In a related note, some of Fort Lauderdale’s more prominent buildings occasionally show up on USA’s “Burn Notice,” which is set in Miami. Anybody got a problem with that?

• Finally, here’s one more plug for RealShare South Florida, coming up Wednesday at the Hyatt Regency Miami. There will be plenty of panel discussions and valuable knowledge to pass along, so don’t miss it! Click here for more details and online registration.