Orlando, Disney and Tourism

Walt Disney never got over the fact that outside his beautiful world-famed Disneyland grew a tangled assortment of hotels, motels, fast food joints and a host of unsightly tackiness. He dreamed to do his next venture on a huge scale where he could create an environment where he could control everything. He wanted to build his own world. And when he finally decided Florida was the state, he was drawn to Orlando as the natural choice. It was almost exactly at the intersection of the Florida Turnpike and Interstate 4 that his agents were able to secretly purchase 30,000 acres of woods, groves and pastures that would eventually house "the happiest place on earth." The dream that he actualized has surpassed the vision that many of its early designers embraced. There's a whole town of Celebration, four giant theme parks, two downtowns, four golf courses, twenty five thousand hotel rooms and a state of the art road and mass transit system. There are over 55,000 employees.
View of Magic Kingdom from the top of the Contemporary Hotel with the famous mono-rail in foreground.
The property is only about half developed, but it has revolutionized travel and vacation for people all over the world. At this site every want and need for a short visit or a total lifetime is anticipated and fulfilled. Its success has spawned smaller but still impressive complexes at Universal Studios and Sea World. And the entire industry has transformed the area in another way by attracting designer, theater and media types who might have originally worked for the mega parks but have gone on to start other ventures that have helped to make Orlando a center for all three fields.

Nickelodeon Studios and the Golf Network, both headquartered in Orlando represent only two of the media outlets of national prominence. Architectural , interior and landscape design firms abound and many have international prominence. And the performance arts are amply represented in one of the country's most vital theater scenes. The Fringe Festival, held each spring in Loch Haven Park, is the nation's oldest and attracts actors and producers from all over the world. Orlando has the third largest number of members of the musicians union as well as SAG and actors equity.

Ultimately the forces that grew from the Disney colossus have created synergy with the high tech businesses the space program created. One of those is at Tiburon Studios, a division of Electronic Arts, which produces video games at its headquarters five miles north of downtown Orlando. Another is the phenomenally successful Full Sail University. Students from all over come to study technical aspects of the movie, music and video business, as well as animation and computer graphics. The merge of the creative and technical forces unleashed by the two big engines of the new Orlando, only give a hint at the exciting possibilities lie in store for central Florida in the years to come.