OrlandoVacationHotels.com

Have you noticed that the stock market is swinging up and down like a yo-yo? There is definitely a lot of uneasiness in the market place right now. We have high unemployment, fear of a double dip recession, fears from the Middle East, and the financial mess of the European nations. While! I getting scared just typing this right now.

I thought it would be a great idea to see how the swinging in the stock market has effected people’s ideas about going on vacation. The fortunate thing is that we can look at really two major cities in the United States (Orlando and Las Vegas) to gauge if people are still willing to travel, or if they have decided to cut back. Looking at the Orlando market, it is about the same as it was last year, and last year was huge improvement over 2009.

I think as long as we do not go into a deep recession, the rest of 2011 and first part of 2012 will look pretty good or at least on par with end of the 2010 and beginning of 2011. However, I do expect that 2012 will be a better year than 2011. I feel that the stock market will calm down a little bit, and hopefully some of these companies that are sitting on a pile of cash will start to spend it again and hire people.

I recently read an article that Orlando hotel packages are up about 7% over 2010 numbers; however, since most hotels have cut their rates so dramatically to entice guests to stay with the that their profits were not much higher. Now, we all know this cannot go on much longer, heck some area hotels are barely keeping their doors open. We do expect rates to go up in 2012 but nothing drastic maybe 5% to 6%.

Well, it looks like we have dodged another hurricane here in the Orlando area. It looks like Irene might just slip by to the East of us and head up to North and South Carolina. Take it from someone who has been through 3 hurricanes, they are no fun. Not only is it nerve racking to get prepared for, but it is almost a given that you will lose power for a couple of days and possibly drinking water. YUCK!

I thought I would take this moment and give you, our readers, Orlandovacationhotels.com Hurricane Policy. Our policy is to put our guests first, and trust me we do not want you to risk life and limb getting to Florida if a hurricane is coming. If a hurricane disrupts your travel or if your flight is cancelled we will either move your hotel arrival to a latter date, or we will simply cancel your reservation and refund your money in full. If you need to alter your Orlando hotel plans please feel free to give us a call and we will do our best to assist you.

Please note, we do need you to call us if you wish to cancel your reservation. If you do not call us prior to your arrival date we will keep your room reserved for you.

This is always a fun time of the year. The busy season is starting to wind down and now we can breath a little easier and start looking forward to 2012. The first thing we do when preparing for a new year is talk to all of our current hotel partners about rates. There is some good news heading into next and some bad news:

1) The hotels are expecting the travel business to stay relatively hot for the next couple of years, and they do expect hotel rates to rise a little bit. Now when I say a little bit, we are talking about $5 to $6 per night…nothing drastic. That is the good news.

2) Extra fees…almost every Orlando hotel is adding a resort fee and some are adding parking fees. Now, some of these fees are valid as to run a shuttle bus to Disney 3 or 4 times a day is not cheap, and to offer free internet and business services are not free either. However, you do need to watch yourself because many hotels are using the resort fees as a way to make a lot of money. Some hotels have even suggested that they might even go to a resort fee of $15 a night…now that is ridiculous. This is the bad news.

All in all, a Disney World vacation is going to cost about the same in 2012 as it did in 2011, with maybe a slight increase of 1% possibly 2%. Our promise to you is that we are going to fight as hard a we can to offer you the cheapest rates possible on Orlando hotels and Disney World tickets.

Disney recently released their numbers for 2010 and it showed that 2010 was the best year ever for Disney as far as attendance goes. Now many people might find this quite interesting especially with the economy the way it has been the past few years. However, Disney has really done a great job of marketing their product to potential guests, and they have also greatly reduced their prices to make a vacation to Disney much more attractive. If you are looking to come to Disney then there is not a better time than now. Many experts believe that the price of a Disney vacation is going to start to go back up. The only thing keeping the prices low right now is the high gas prices, but once those stabilize Disney will start to inch their prices up to a more profitable level.

Many of the hotels, including the Downtown Disney World hotels, are offering discounts for guests to come this summer. Many of these properties are offering gas cards or gas rebates if you stay with them for 7 nights or longer. These marketing gimmicks are nice, but shop their rates as you might be paying more for the room even with the rebate than you would if you just got the room by itself without the rebate.

Typically, the summer gas prices tend to go up during labor day weekend and then they usually settle back down. Most travel experts are not expecting the fuel prices to have much of an impact on the attendance. Sure, it might be a deterent to a few families but for the most part once a family has decided to go on a vacation they usually will stick to it.