Polk County Tourism is at an all-time high

10/28/2015

Adventure Suite at the new LEGOLAND Hotel.

You may have seen the article in The Ledger this morning about the record collections of the "bed tax" in Polk County during October 1, 2014 - September 30, 2015 county fiscal year. Polk County Tourism & Sports Marketing is reporting $9.1 million in tourism tax collections, which is an 18% increase over last year's record year. While there are certainly many factors that go into this, including the successful recruitment of numerous sporting events, cultural events and academic competitions that bring people in from all over the state and country, there is no denying that the opening of the LEGOLAND Florida Resort Hotel also played a primary role to increase in revenue over the last three months of their fiscal year.

2015 Polk County Vacation Guide

So what happens to those funds collected by the Tourist Development Council (TDC), the governing body of the Polk County Tourism & Sports Marketing organization? Well, per Florida statute, they get invested back into the community by:
1) Marketing the Polk County community to visitors from across the globe to choose Polk County as the hub for their Central Florida vacation,
2) Being used for grant funding to support sports, meetings and conventions, arts and cultural activities and festivals that attract visitors from outside the area to spend their money in Polk and
3) Capital investment into our communities to help support the economic impact of tourism, sports, business travel etc. has on our community. Once such example is the $10 million that the TDC has earmarked for the development of a field house and convention center in Winter Haven.

In all of this good news, it's important to not lose sight of how LEGOLAND Florida has played a pivotal role in the revitalization of tourism in Polk. In the beginning, the leadership at LEGOLAND said they wanted to have something new happening in the park every 6 months. They have accomplished this. Check. They said they wanted to make Winter Haven's LEGOLAND Florida park at multi-day stay. They reopened a revitalized water park and opened their brand new 152-room hotel last May. Check. They said that their investment in Winter Haven would be beyond the park walls and they opened their USA Customer Care Center and national headquarters in downtown Winter Haven. Check. With no sign that this trend of investment will slow, their is only positive news coming out of the park, which is estimated to bring in 1.5 million visitors to Winter Haven each year (unofficial number).

And while the resort does not share exact visitation or occupancy numbers, anecdotally they experienced occupancy rates throughout the summer close to 98-100%. That fact right there shows how the tourism industry has shifted in Polk. Traditionally the summers were the slowest season for Polk County visitation. March and April were traditionally the highest due to events with sports, Spring Training and aviation (Sun 'n Fun).

Other hotels in the area that cater to the LEGOLAND guests also saw much higher than average occupancy and average daily rates through those summer months according to economic data. The rising tide of demand that the new multi-day LEGOLAND Florida Resort created did raise all "ships" as they say. The public relations efforts surrounding their hotel opening reached 1.7 BILLION people globally with messaging about the resort. Heck, even Jimmy Fallon helped to spread the word. Yes, yes, we know it says Orlando, but to someone in London, or Montana, or China, that tells them exactly where we are.