Orlando, FL Mayor Buddy Dyer spoke with Cheddar News about what's in store this summer for his city as Memorial Day weekend kicks off next week and how his administration is navigating certain political challenges.

Closing Bell

Orlando, FL Mayor Buddy Dyer on Summer Travel Season & Navigating Political Challenges

The busy summer travel season is nearly here. And who better to join me to discuss what's in store than Orlando Mayor buddy Dyer, buddy. Thanks for joining me. My pleasure, Kristen. Good to be here. Great to have you. Especially today. Mayor Memorial Day Weekend is just around the corner and expectations are that it will be one of the busiest travel times this summer. How is Orlando preparing to welcome guests? Well, we are open and we are ready. So pre pandemic, we set a record with 75 million visitors and this last year, we had a little over 74 million. So we are back at really full service levels. So we are ready for our visitors for the late spring and summer time. Are you expecting a busy summer travel season to Orlando? We absolutely are. The holiday seasons break was very busy in Orlando. The holiday seasons were very busy. There's a lot of new attractions at all of our different theme parks. I'm not going to pick just one because we have the big three but many others as well. And then believe it or not, I would say about 55% of the people that visit Orlando aren't actually coming to the theme parks. They're coming to Orlando to do some of the other great things we have in our community prices up across the board. And also at Disney World in Orlando, one of the main attractions. How is that impacting business in your area? It really hasn't impacted us much at all. I know it's costing more to come. We've had fluctuations over the last year in gas prices, obviously. But airline travel has been pretty consistent other than a few bumps that we had that were fairly major, but I anticipate it being pretty easy to access Orlando. And the great thing about Orlando, we have a vacation package or an experience for everybody, whatever price level you may be coming at. Well, I know the dispute between Disney and Florida. Governor Ron desantis continuing with Disney recently filing a suit against De Santis citing government retaliation. What's your view on their dispute? So that's inter mural politics. It really hasn't affected visitation in any way. When I fly back from laguardia to New York, I anticipate I'll see 100 people wearing Disney shirts on the plane. So I don't think it's affected Disney in any way, at least in terms of people that are traveling and visiting the parks. Has it impacted business in Orlando? Not that it's noticeable, but it's only been a short period of time. So we'll see how that all goes. Well, let's switch gears here because I know another big topic, of course, really around the country and for a lot of businesses these days is the federal debt limit. We are approaching a potential default on the federal debt come June 1st. And businesses on our show have talked about how it could impact their business. Have you seen any impact in Orlando? No, but I don't think there's anybody in our country that wants to see a default on the debt limit, that's not good for anyone. And certainly if that were to occur and I don't think it's going to that could have a major impact and implications that far exceed anything from this visitor issues. Well, I know one of the buzziest words this year has been artificial intelligence and I know Orlando, it's my understanding is making some big investments in technology trying to improve technology offerings and add jobs in your area. What are some of those investments in technology? And is a part of that? It absolutely is. We're the meta center of the metaverse in Orlando. We have the largest cluster of modeling simulation and training entities in the country. A lot of people don't know that about Orlando. So it goes all the way back to the initial space race back in the sixties that obviously Central Florida was a big part of theme parks, have always been high tech, think about the various rides and attractions that they have. And then we now the center for that talent pool that creates a I V I V R. So you are bullish on the metaverse, absolutely bullish on the Metaverse medicine, Orlando medicine. Orlando, how do you see that growing over time? What can visitors expect if they come to Orlando? Everything that is an experience is going to be different in the future and we're a future ready city, which means we anticipate and are ready for whatever those technology changes may be. And that goes all the way from how we deliver city services to our residents to create an ecosystem where businesses in that type of industry can thrive. Can it help the many tourists who come to Orlando on an annual basis to visit your parks among other attractions? Simply get around the area faster, wait till they're using automated vehicles which we already have in Orlando and Lake Nona and soon to be in our downtown, soon to have flying cars as soon as the FAA lets us in on that. So I think we're going to be at the forefront of a lot of these changing technologies. How will flying cars work in Orlando? So they'll be electric, they'll probably be six passenger and they'll have the ability to travel short distances or long distances. FAA is going to have a to do with what that type of travel actually looks like. But when you think about testing out technology, when you have 75 million people that are visiting your community. What better place to display new technology than Orlando Orlando Mayor, Buddy Dyer, buddy. Thank you for joining me here at the New York Stock Exchange. So good to be with you. Thank you. Well, this afternoon, just shortly after I sat down with Buddy Dyer to take that interview news did break that Disney is canceling a plan to spend about a billion dollars to move much of its California operation to Orlando. The company planned to relocate many of its California employees to that Lake Nona region and spend $900 million building a new employee campus and housing. But the chair of Disney Parks didn't explicitly say the company's view with Governor Ron desantis was the issue though he did blame changing business conditions for the change in strategy. He did say the company still plans to invest 17 billion into the Florida operations over the next decade and we did reach back out to Mayor Dyer to get his take on the announcement, but we haven't heard back just yet. So if we do hear back from Buddy Dyer, we'll let you know.