Orlando wins race to 50 million tourists

There was a record 51.4 million visitors in Orlando last year beating New York City to the 50 million mark and making Orlando the number one visited destination in the country. This comes after New York's mayor was quoted as saying in 2009 "For the first time in 20 years, we were the most popular tourism destination in the country, surpassing Orlando."
New York City expects to hit 50 million by 2012 with 48.7 million people visiting the city last year.

A new marketing campaign based on the slogan "Orlando Makes Me Smile" and low airfares are suspected to have helped the city reach this milestone. New — including the The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando — also helped. Gary Sain, president and chief executive of Visit Orlando, added, "There was pent up demand for Orlando since a lot of people cut out travel in 2008 and 2009."

New York however did beat Orlando in international visitors with 9.7 million people to Orlando's 3.6 million.

Read the article at Crain's New York Business.