HOME | ARCHIVE

Sept. 8, 2017

Hurricane Irma: VISITOR UPDATE

Dear Members and Community Partners,

As Central Florida braces for the arrival of Hurricane Irma, Visit Orlando continues to focus on serving the area’s tourism industry and sharing important information with visitors.

As many of you are aware, we’ve been working very closely with our hotel members to assess available inventory and assist evacuees. These members represent more than 80 percent of the region’s hotel inventory and are a critical part of our emergency response system. Thank you to all of our members who have responded so quickly to calls for help, and also for generously increasing your flexibility for evacuees. Several member hotels have relaxed policies on allowing pets, changing or cancelling reservations and even adding wait lists.

Although our current assessment is that our destination is essentially at a peak level, especially Saturday through Monday, it is important to note that this situation is very fluid.

We are continually providing any information we receive to our Visitor Information team to help evacuees with frequently requested information and resources.

There are several ways for visitors to contact us:

•    By phone: 800-972-3304
•    Online with live chat: VisitOrlando.com/Hurricane
•    Twitter and Facebook: @VisitOrlando for important news and updates

We also are here to help share your information. If your business has an important operational message for visitors, such as closures or post-storm resumption of operations, please tag us on Twitter, @VisitOrlando, and we can help.  

Our main Visit Orlando offices will be closed Monday, but our Visitor Services, PR and Social Media teams will remain active through the storm (pending power availability).

When Irma passes, we will share our updated marketing and communication plans, pending the post-storm assessments.  

Until then, please take every precaution to stay safe.

— George Aguel, President & CEO

Special Message