ORLANDO, FL— Coming off a good December the Orlando area has several new hotel developments in the works that are on track to up the area’s appeal and increase competition overall as well, according to The Orlando Sentinel. The area is slated to open its first Ritz-Carlton Hotel as part of Grande Lakes Orlando, a 500-acre resort on John Young Parkway south of the Bee Line Expressway. The resort in question will also include a J.W. Marriott Hotel, an 18-hole golf course, a conference center and a spa. Its scheduled to open by midsummer. At the other end of the pricing spectrum is the long-delayed Pop Century Resort at Disney World. The 5,700-room budget hotel was originally supposed to open in 2001. That debut was delayed until 2002 and is now scheduled for an unspecified time in 2003. Disney officials wont name a probable month. And near International Drive, Harris Rosen has broken ground on his Shingle Creek Resort golf course, which, along with a posh clubhouse, is scheduled for completion by the end of 2003. The facility will provide the closest golf yet for visitors at the nearby Orange County Convention Center. The hotel complex, with swimming pools and tennis courts, will follow the golf course in a few years, when Rosen and his partners decide the travel industry has recovered enough to support the high-end complex. The current target for opening the hotel is 2007. In other news, Hilton and Hyatt announced plans several years ago to build hotels on land adjacent to the convention center, and Orlandos Peabody hotel said it would add 1,000 rooms, but none of those projects are close to coming out of the ground, in large part because the sluggish economy and a slump in travel are making it hard for anyone to get loans to build new hotels. Even if all three projects are green-lighted in the coming year, they would be hard-pressed to open before 2005. SOURCE: The Orlando Sentinel
