ORLANDO, Fla. – Many hotels in Orlando’s tourism district saw an unexpected boost this past Labor Day weekend thanks to last-minute bookings, according to the president of the Central Florida Hotel and Lodging Association.“What the surprise was that there were so many people that booked at the very last-minute, Thursday or Friday,” Rich Maladecki said, he is the president of the CFHLA.
Maladecki said last Tuesday he was seeing occupancy rates across Orlando for Labor Day weekend at 40-50%, but many hotel executives on a weekly call Tuesday morning say they were at more than 50% occupancy rate. “Some of them capping at 80-85% occupancy,” Maladecki said. “One lodging executive today said they had 70 walk-in customers on Friday.