“Best city for a family vacation. Don’t expect a cultural getaway, however.”
That’s Orlando in a nutshell according to Travelandleisure.com’s survey of America’s Favorite Cities. The survey, co-hosted by CNN Headline News polled 60,000 travelers and residents of 25 cities across the United States.
Out of the 63 categories, Orlando ranks in the top 5 only once according to both visitors and residents. Not surprisingly, this was the Family Vacation category, where Orlando ranks #1 among all 25 cities. The city ranks in the top 10 in a few more categories (Pizza, Barbecue, Weather, and Active/Adventure Vacation), although not by much.
On the flip side, Orlando ranks in the bottom 5 for a shocking 22 out of 63 categories. In fact, Orlando ranks dead last in Skyline/views, Culture (overall), and Shopping (overall) according to visitors. Residents put Orlando last in 7 categories. The culture category gets extremely weak ratings, where Orlando ranks in the bottom 6 in all 6 subcategories which includes Architecture/notable buildings, Classical music, Historical sites/monuments, Museums/galleries, Theater, and Underground arts scene.
As noted above, our “Best Feature” is as a Family Vacation destination. Our “Worst Feature” is our lack of Historical sites and/or monuments.
Take a look at the America’s Favorite Cities 2007 survey and let us know what you think.
Popularity: 1% [?]
3 Comments for “America’s Favorite Cities - Orlando”
October 10th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
If you think about it, most folks who have visited Orlando haven’t really visited Orlando. They’ve visited Lake Buena Vista. I’d rank Lake Buena Vista last in all those categories too
In seriousness, I think it’s not about where we are right now thats important. It’s about where we want to be in 5, 10 years. Seeing the arts and entertainment development downtown should be exciting. Hopefully there will be more things with the creative village talk, etc. as well!
October 10th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Alex, I agree … Orlando’s future is looking very good with the new arena and performing arts centre. In preparation for those new facilities, the city needs to run a major marketing campaign to change residents’ attitudes. Right now, people are convinced that Orlando will never be a center of anything more than tourism.
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I was just looking through the comments on this post, and I can’t agree more. That’s one of the reasons a good friend and I recently launched our blog, which is an “insider’s” look at Orlando and the Central Florida area.
Comment on this post