ORLANDO, FLA – Ask any local or one of the millions of people who visit Orlando and the Central Florida area and they could probably tell you that tourism drives the local economy. Whether it is the beaches on either coast, the nightlife or the many theme parks, Orlando is universally known as a worldwide vacation mecca.
Sports also play a role in Orlando’s never-ending flow of tourists. The City Beautiful is home to golf courses galore, the NBA’s Magic, the Arena Football League’s Predators and Major League Soccer’s Orlando City Lions. Add in the teams representing the University of Central Florida, Rollins College and others within an easy drive and three college bowl games and there are plenty of events that create a regular flow of people.
In 2012, the Orlando Solar Bears rejoined the roster of sports teams vying for both fans and entertainment dollars. A little over three years later, the ECHL franchise has drawn over three-quarters of a million fans to the Amway Center with plenty more to come.
Over the first three seasons, the team has been collecting data from ticket requests, questions about the franchise and more. With that information in hand, Solar Bears President Jason Siegel and his staff decided it was time to analyze the numbers to see how the team could benefit in the future from any trends visible in the statistics.
“We just felt like we had three years worth of data to share. It was enough of a sampling to release the findings,” Siegel said after the team presented its analysis.”We’re in Orlando where there’s what 64, 65 million visitors so for us to have an active role in contributing to that we wanted to share the story.”
Given Orlando’s stature among the top destinations in the United States, it was no surprise that people from all over North America were interested in the Solar Bears. With the diversity of the roster that in two incarnations (IHL from 1995-2001 and now the ECHL) has hosted over 180 Canadian-born players and 112 American-born players, it was a cinch that when the Solar Bears became affiliated with the Toronto Maple Leafs that international interest would grow. According to the numbers from Visit Orlando, 1.17 million visitors from Canada are expected to fly south in 2015.
The relationship with the Maple Leafs was solidified last season when the Solar Bears hosted the ECHL All-Star game. Orlando teamed with Toronto both at the NHL and AHL levels to run a promotion to bring people south for the festivities – a partnership that is growing.
“The relationship with Toronto, which is a really important market for our local economy when it comes to tourism, the relationship with the Maple Leafs was one that we wanted to share,” Siegel said. “We just cut another deal with them to do another promotion with them. That, combined with a little bit of a press tour that we’re going to do in Toronto, we just felt like there were a couple of things that we wanted to share.”
What came as a surprise to Siegel and the staff was just how far the popularity of the franchise has spread. The Solar Bears have had inquiries from 42 different countries over their three years back out of hibernation. The questions have come from as far away as South Africa, Japan, South America, Australia, Europe and other spots around the globe.
“We were pleasantly surprised when we saw the numbers with 42 different countries represented,” Siegel said.
Given the number of tourists who come from Europe, especially the United Kingdom where hockey has found a foothold, the fact that 30 percent of the inquiries came from the U.K. was not a shock. What was however was that the leading non-North American country asking about the Solar Bears was Brazil at 38 percent.
“We hear from folks from the U.K. constantly – like it never stops. Sometimes it is half a dozen a day, sometimes it is two dozen a week,” Siegel said. “We don’t have a lot of communication back and forth with folks from Brazil but first of all they’re coming to Orlando – obviously that’s not a secret. They’re coming to our games and that surprises us because we’ve had so much communication with the folks that were coming from the U.K. – not nearly the kind of communication with the folks coming from Brazil.”
Siegel admitted that being in Orlando and watching the efforts being made by the Magic – who went to Brazil to play a preseason game – and the Lions, who are owned by Brazilian interests, has provided a perfect road map.
“We’re paying attention [to the Magic and Lions]. We meet every six weeks, all the shareholders with the Central Florida Sports Commission, so we see each others numbers, we hear how everyone is positioning themselves in the marketplace,” he said. “We know what they’re doing internationally and what their efforts are so absolutely we’re paying close attention.”
With so many people coming to Orlando, it only made sense for the Solar Bears to try to reach out further to the tourists. The team came up with a plan to directly involve the local hotels in outreach – specifically the hotel concierges.
“We felt that we could grow a segment of our business not only just doing marketing and having that digital business come back to us but then to be a little more proactive and have local concierges out there pitching our business in addition,” Siegel said. “Frankly now that we’ve signed up 100 hotels, if there’s five to eight concierges per hotel, we now have another 500-800 person sales staff out there pitching our tickets.”
The idea is simple: give the concierges a way to direct sell tickets to people who are looking for something to do. The first step was to get hotel management and concierges out to see a game live (Siegel said that approximately 80-90 percent of the hotel people involved have done so) so that they can give a first-hand description to hotel guests. The second step is the sale itself.
“They’ve seen it, they’ve enjoyed it, they think we’ve got a great product now when they get approached at the counter [and the customer asks] ‘hey, what’s up for tonight?'” Siegel said. “We just want to be a part of the mix. Obviously if there’s no basketball game then there may be a hockey game. We just want to be part of the portfolio of different things to do in Orlando.”
That philosophy will get its first big test this week when visitors come to town for the two college football bowl games, the Russell Athletic Bowl on December 29th and the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Day. With home games on December 27th, December 29th, January 2nd and January 3rd, Siegel is hoping the visibility will give the hockey team a boost.
“For the effort that we’re putting in, listen, if we can do three, four, five to one versus the amount of effort that we’re putting in that would be fantastic. If we just hit it right and it’s 25 times the return on investment, that would be fantastic too but we have to start somewhere,” he said. “It’s part of the economic climate here in Orlando. We’ve got to be a part of it and then we start growing the thing.”
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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