WINTER HAVEN – Legoland has given business leaders here a feeling of optimism not seen since two Major League Baseball teams’ spring training operations abandoned the community and Cypress Gardens shut down nearly a decade ago.
“A lot of the area’s growth is tied to [Legoland],” said Bob Cameron Jr., a real estate developer. “Cypress Gardens drew a bit in its heyday, but this seems to be a lot more family-oriented, and you see them roaming around a lot more. You go to Publix in the morning, you can always tell the ones here for Legoland because they have the young kids.”
The theme park plans to open a third on-site hotel next year to try to hang onto tourists for more days in this growing Polk County town of 42,000 about 50 miles south of Orlando.
A year after Cypress Gardens shut down in September 2009, the bottom fell out of hotel occupancy rates in Winter Haven. According to data provided by the industry research firm STR, visitors occupied 22.2 percent of possible hotel room days in September 2010.
That was the lowest number for any September since at least 1993 and a precipitous drop from the 70.4 percent just six years earlier.
But ever since Legoland opened, those rates have hovered in the 60- to 70-percent range, and the total number of hotel rooms in the city has surged from 1,014 in April 2015 to 1,463 last month.
Park leaders hope their draw will grow now that the park in March debuted its new Lego Movie World, an 80,000-square-foot tribute to the popular cinematic franchise.
Dwayne Picquet of New Orleans had not even heard of that newest attraction when he booked a three-night stay at the Legoland Pirate Island Hotel.
Picquet said his 3-year-old son, Demhi, had seen a review of the park on the popular YouTube channel Ryan ToysReview, which has 19 million subscribers.
An 11-hour drive later and Picquet had his family ready for an extended stay at Legoland.
“I just wanted to give him an opportunity to experience this,” Pacquet said. “There are so many options of things to do here. If he likes it, we’ll be back. Anytime I can see him playing and having fun, I love it.”
When they walk into the hotel lobby, visitors are transported into a toy-filled arena, with a pit full of Legos for them to play in. They are greeted with a large castle made of Legos and pictures of celebrities who have visited.
The rides in the park itself target children up to 12 years old, with many being slower rides on land or water that even small children can get on alone.
Each area of the theme park has child-friendly themes, such as the new Lego Movie World and Duplo Valley, which is stocked with attractions that give children things to do like spot farm animals on a tractor ride or explore nature on a train.
“From Day 1, Legoland Florida has appreciated the role we play in the Polk County community,” park General Manager Rex Jackson said. “We have always taken that role to heart and we feel we are an economic engine here.”
In June 2015, a month after Legoland debuted its first hotel, average room rates in the city eclipsed $100 for the first time, reaching $128.45.
Now, the region is on a streak of 43 consecutive months of average hotel room rates being more than $100.
“We are seeing more people stay more nights,” said Kevin Carr, director of hotel operations for Merlin Entertainments, Legoland’s parent company. “We want people to come and stay with us multiple days.”
That has benefited not only Legoland hotels but other properties around the area.
“Our brand itself attracts travelers but it’s a cherry on top to have Legoland right across the street,” said Desiree Howell, director of sales at Courtyard Marriott who has worked more than a decade in hotels in Winter Haven.
She said the town “has come a long way since Cypress Gardens. We have gone from targeting the demographics of senior citizens to families with children 2 to 12 years old. It has been an interesting transition.”
Legoland wasn’t an easy sell to the business community at first.
“Most were positive but skeptical,” said Mark Jackson, director of Central Florida’s Tourism and Sports Marketing group in Polk County. “Nobody had even heard of Legoland. The toughest part of my job was convincing the community that this was going to work.”
Jackson has been in Winter Haven since 1981, when he moved from Wisconsin to become part of a water skiing show at Cypress Gardens.
He helped recruit the RussMatt college baseball tournament, which brings hundreds of collegiate baseball teams to town for a few weeks in the spring to help offset the departure of the Cleveland Indians from Winter Haven in 2008 and the Kansas City Royals from nearby Davenport in 2002.
Legoland has boosted year-round tourism, he said.
“They have done everything they said they were going to do,” Mark Jackson said. “There have been no empty promises. They have not deviated from their pitch one iota.”
As you walk into Legoland, a tourism employee hands out fliers that highlight Polk County attractions such as the Balloons and Beyond hot-air balloon rides, Bok Tower Gardens and the Florida Skydiving Center.
“Not only do we want visitors spending more than one day at the park,” Mark Jackson said, “we want them spending more than one day in the community.”
Jackson said he wants people to consider where the city was before Legoland arrived.
“A lot of people forget how dark those days were,” he said. “They were freaking dark as hell.”
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