Sponsored Listings:
When Universal Orlando’s Endless Summer property opens in 2020, 62% of the resort’s hotel inventory will fall into its two budget tiers, offering what one Universal executive called “unprecedented value” in the competitive Florida theme park sector.
Rates for Universal’s 2,800-room Endless Summer resort, comprising the Surfside Inn and Suites and the Dockside Inn and Suites, will start at $73 per night. Over half of the Endless Summer inventory, more than 1,400 rooms, are two-bedroom suites starting at $111 per night.
Those prices, said Vince LaRuffa, Universal Orlando’s senior vice president of resort sales and marketing, come with the benefits of staying in any Universal Orlando hotel, including being able to enter the parks one hour before the public.
“It really introduces a completely new category, not only to Universal, but with it’s location and at that price point, it’s unprecedented value,” he said.
Those two properties will bring Universal’s Orlando room count to 9,000, 5,600 of which will fall into Universal’s prime value and value categories.
Endless Summer is in the value category. The prime value properties are the 2,200-room Cabana Bay Beach Resort and the 600-room Aventura Hotel, opening in August.
The upper-end Loews Sapphire Falls Resort, Loews Royal Pacific Resort, Loews Portofino Bay Hotel and the Hard Rock Hotel round out the portfolio.
The two new hotels will mean that four of Universal’s five newest Orlando properties will all be in lower-end categories.
“Research that was done returned data that suggested that the value category would be popular and would align well with the theme park product,” LaRuffa said, explaining the resort’s strategy.
Frank Belzer, Universal Orlando’s senior vice president of sales, said that while the price point at the value properties is lower than at its other ones, “we have not sacrificed the quality.”
“You still have the theming, you still have the quality,” he said.
Agents who sell both Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando vacations said that while Universal isn’t alone in offering value-oriented, on-site properties at its park — Disney World has five value properties including three “All-Star” hotels, the Pop Century Resort and Art of Animation Resort — Universal’s product stands out for being new and innovative. Disney newest value property debuted in 2012, and some opened as far back as 1994.
“Clients love being a part of something new,” said Meredith Wallace of the Bedford, N.Y.-based agency Minnie Memories Travel, adding that Universal’s value properties offer a fresh approach. She cited the bowling alley at the Cabana Bay as an example of an attractive amenity. “Universal is thinking outside the box, which has always served them well,” she said.
Kim Milnes, a family travel expert with Cherry Hill, N.J.-based Family Travel Boutique said that Universal’s value properties offer a welcome enhancement for her budget-minded clients who want the benefits offered to on-site guests.
And according to Sally Black, founder of the Vacationkids agency and director of the Family Travel Association, Universal’s new properties make sense for the millennial theme park demographic.
“Generally speaking, most young, single and family market millennials don’t have large discretionary vacation budgets and look for more affordable places to stay,” she said. “I think Universal is very smart to zig where Disney is zagging and give budget-minded families precisely what they want at an affordable price point.”
Source: travelweekly.com
