OCCC in the News

Catch up on the latest news and all of the exciting things happening inside and around the award-winning Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) and the International Drive Convention District.

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Why a Positive Attitude and Strong Partnerships Are The Key To Meeting Success

7/26/2021 1:05:00 PM|

Orlando-based Amateur Athletic Union President Jennings “Rusty” Buchanan thinks outside the box to organize mega-events for young athletes and their families. Our third “Planner of Productivity” is Jennings “Rusty” Buchanan, president of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). Established in 1888, AAU once prepared athletes for Olympic competition—including Buchanan, a former Olympic hopeful in track and field. Today, the organization is more grassroots, with regional chapters promoting sports ...

Convention Center Hosts Safe Events With GBAC STAR Accreditation

7/26/2021 1:03:00 PM|

The award-winning Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) in Orlando, FL welcomes many visitors from around the world. In fact, its nearly 200 annual events include 115 conventions and tradeshows that bring in more than 1.5 million attendees and a $3 billion economic impact annually. The convention center, known as The Center of Hospitality, comprises two buildings: the West Building and the North-South Building. These feature more than 2 million square feet of exhibition space and 7 million squa...

Central Florida tourism leaders see high hopes, challenges in post-pandemic

7/20/2021 1:54:00 PM|

Tourism is coming back toward the level it was in Central Florida — but it won’t be the way it was. With demand for hotel rooms, convention space, and tourism reaching peak levels already in the summer of 2021, Central Florida’s tourism industry — the heart of Florida’s tourism industry — is challenged with finding labor and adjusting to some of the other post-pandemic changes in the economy.

Orange County bed tax shows continued recovery

7/19/2021 10:49:00 AM|

Hotel tax revenue, a key indicator of the tourism industry’s health, continued to show improvement in May, the most recent month for which collection data is available. “We continue to have had a good rebound from last April, when we hit rock bottom,” said Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond, who tracks the receipts. “But we are still below fiscal year 2019. We’re still below where we really ought to be.”

Orange County Convention Center hosts record-breaking volleyball championships

7/19/2021 10:47:00 AM|

Marking the largest event to date hosted at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC), the Amateur Athletic Union’s (AAU’s) 48th AAU Junior National Volleyball Championships welcomed more than 135,000 attendees across two weeks, from June 18-29, 2021, creating an estimated economic impact of $173.3 million for the region, according to OCCC officials.

With 56,000-Plus AAU Athletes in Orlando, Sports Tourism Roars Back

7/7/2021 9:49:00 AM|

With more than 3,400 teams and 56,000 athletes rolling into town for one tournament, Orlando has officially kicked 2020 to the curb. The world’s largest volleyball tournament is in town, bringing with it a welcome influx of tourism and a boom in hotel usage – not to mention plenty of economic impact.

Conventional Wisdom: Why MegaCon means megabucks for Orlando

7/1/2021 10:08:00 AM|

Masks are off. Restaurants are filling up. Theme parks are packed. But how about the Orange County Convention Center? How did the pandemic change how it operated, besides giving out COVID tests and vaccines? Orange County Convention Center Executive Director Mark Tester shares the unique ways the center handled the pandemic and explains why conventions and events help the local economy.

Convention center exec: Meetings biz ready to take off in second half of 2021

6/23/2021 4:17:00 PM|

The Orange County Convention Center is seeing an uptick in trade shows slated for the rest of this year — a major sign that the tourism and travel industry is loosening the Covid-19 pandemic's grip on the economy.

The Summer Event Season is Heating Up at OCCC

6/10/2021 10:53:00 AM|

The weather isn’t the only thing that is heating up in Orlando, as the Orange County Convention Center is hosting a full roster in June. The month kicked off with the Vision Expo East from June 2-5, with more than 200 exhibiting companies. It was the first large-scale, in-person trade show for the vision care community since 2019 and brought together thousands of industry members. For 35 years, Vision Expo East has been the premier event for ophthalmic professionals, where eye care meets eyewea...

Calendar filling up at Orange County Convention Center

6/10/2021 9:49:00 AM|

For months, parts of the Orange County Convention Center were transformed into mass coronavirus testing and vaccination sites to help serve the community during the pandemic, treating thousands of people on a daily basis. Those sites are now closed as Florida returns to normalcy, and major events return.

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