More than 74 million visitors came to the Orlando, Florida, area last year, Visit Orlando, the official tourism association for Orlando, said Thursday. This puts Orland0 at 98 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
The number of tourists was 25 percent greater than it was in 2021 when central Florida was still recovering from the blows to tourism caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted international travel and caused convention cancellations. The area’s theme parks closed for several months in 2020 in an effort to stop the virus’s spread.
“This past year proved to be a key recovery timeframe for Orlando’s tourism industry, with a lot of pent-up demand from our top U.S. and international markets,” said Casandra Matej, president and CEO for Visit Orlando, the area’s tourism promotion organization….