In 1857, this city accommodated only 85 residents; at the beginning of twentieth century, it was named as “a city of orange peels”; in the late 1950s, it won the favor of space and defense industries. It was not until 1971, when the Walt Disney World was finally built up, that this city began to take on a brand-new look and develop towards a new direction. This is Orlando, a city of innovation and happiness with American style.
According to the results of this research, the leisure development index is 0.586, with the economic index for leisure development being 0.279, environmental index for leisure development 0.764 and the administrative index for leisure development 0.716.
Florida, where Orlando is located, is known as “a state of sunshine”. And the environmental quality of Orlando is above the average in the United States. Based on the superior natural environment, major foundation of its leisure development, Orlando has developed a series of theme parks, relying on which a system of leisure industry has taken shape. This not only meets the requirements of local residents and tourists, but is also conducive to the successful transformation of Orlando. The experiences can be drawn from the following aspects.
Firstly, Orlando has developed its diversified leisure industrial clusters on the basis of theme parks, particularly, the Walt Disney World Theme Park. In addition to the facilities related to the theme of Disney, movies, the ocean and the holidays, facilities of sports and exhibitions are also growing in clusters, which contribute to the formation of a large number of leisure industrial clusters and facility clusters.
Secondly, the leisure industry provides services targeted on families and businessmen. At the beginning, Orlando centered its products and facilities on the families and strove to create a happy, warm and motivational leisure atmosphere. Later on, it began to develop business leisure gradually. For the present, 81 % of the domestic tourists (including those from Florida) come for family reasons and 19 % come for business.
Thirdly, the government provides a wide range of public services to meet the needs for leisure activities of local residents. Family, park and recreation department are the basic units of leisure supply in Orlando, which is the same case with other cities in the United States. The government offers classified programs geared to the needs of such different groups as children, students, seniors, the disabled, art lovers, sports fans and so on. This will help residents to overcome leisure barriers, cultivate leisure capability and fully enjoy leisure.
Fourthly, technology is widely applied in the leisure industry. Theme parks are among the fields of leisure industry that can best combine leisure and technology, the latter of which is one of the two pillar sectors of Orlando. Either the possession of top roller coasters across the world or the capability to combine closely the movie optics and leisure activities related to film and television or others, lead to the constant innovation of leisure industry in Orlando and guarantee its leading position.
Fifthly, enterprises in Orlando are conducive to the marketing of city brand. To a great degree, the promotion of its city brand relies on enterprises with a global influence, including a large number of tourism enterprises like Disney, significant international conferences, advanced film industries and well-known NBA teams. All these are major forces propelling the marking of Orlando’s city brand.
[ World Model Cities for Leisure Development, Song Rui (ed), Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2012]