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Business View Magazine
was very well-known for the theme parks, particularly
Walt Disney World and SeaWorld. So the visionaries
that helped develop this whole area and the tourism
market in Orlando, had an idea that when the attrac-
tions were filled with the leisure guests and the tour-
ists, on the off-season, wouldn’t it be nice to have the
convention-goer, or the business traveler, who would
keep the hotel rooms in the community filled most of
the year, and keep people working and busy and drive
economic impact?
“So, in 1978, a room tax was instituted at two percent
and the Convention Center was built on International
Drive and opened in 1983. I came in 1984, and, at
that time, I started in sales and marketing and my mis-
sion was to help bring those conventions and trade
shows to Orlando and Orange County. When I came,
they were doing mostly consumer events: boat shows,
car shows, gun shows, the circus – mostly events that
drew only the public and that was because on Inter-
national Drive the infrastructure wasn’t there to bring
in the overnight visitor or the business traveler. We
weren’t quite ready.
“So, plans were made to do an expansion in 1989,
predicated on getting some hotel rooms near the Con-
vention Center. The Peabody Hotel opened right across
the street and that gave us our first headquarter hotel.
The good news was, when the Peabody opened, it re-
ally did help drive business, and we started to do con-
ventions and trade shows which is what our mission
was. We were very successful and the market grew.
So we expanded in 1997 and 1998. We were, then,
a million square feet – one of the top three conven-
tion centers in the country. The road network and the
airport continued to expand and business was very,
