Last updated July 26, 2026
Orlando is the #1 meetings and conventions destination in North America, ranked first by Cvent for the 11th straight year in 2026, and it welcomed a record 76.7 million visitors in 2025. The Orange County Convention Center, the second-largest in the U.S., hosted 187 events and just over 2 million attendees last year. Below are the numbers that define Orlando’s event economy in 2026: convention volume, tourism-tax collections, the national trends shaping planner budgets, and the video benchmarks behind how events get remembered.
- #1 Meetings destination in North America, 11 years running (Cvent, 2026)
- 76.7M Visitors to Orlando in 2025, an all-time record (Visit Orlando, 2026)
- $5B Projected FY2025–26 economic impact of the OCCC (OCCC / TSNN (projection))
Why is Orlando the #1 event city in America?
Because planners keep booking it. Cvent named Orlando the top meeting destination in North America for the 11th consecutive year in 2026, a ranking built on more than $20 billion of global sourcing activity across its platforms in 2025, up from $18 billion the year before. Orlando has held the top spot every year since 2015.
The city’s advantage is density: a massive convention center, 15 minutes from the airport, ringed by more than 100,000 hotel rooms. Four Orlando-area hotels landed in Cvent’s Top 20 meeting hotels for 2026.
Table 1 · Cvent Top 10 Meeting Destinations, North America (2026)
| Rank | Destination |
|---|---|
| 1 | Orlando, FL |
| 2 | Las Vegas, NV |
| 3 | Nashville, TN |
| 4 | Chicago, IL |
| 5 | Dallas, TX |
| 6 | Atlanta, GA |
| 7 | San Diego, CA |
| 8 | New York City, NY |
| 9 | Austin, TX |
| 10 | Washington, D.C. |
How many people visit Orlando, and why does it matter for events?
Orlando drew 76.7 million visitors in 2025, a record and up 1.8% over 2024’s then-record 75.3 million. It remains the most-visited destination in the United States. Roughly 10% of that traffic is domestic business travel, and the group-meetings segment grew 3.9% in 2024 to 5.6 million visitors.
For planners, volume translates to infrastructure: more flights, more rooms, more vendors, more competition on rates. Big visitation is why a citywide convention here rarely strains the city the way it would elsewhere. Figure 1 · Orlando total annual visitors. Both years were all-time records.
Source: Visit Orlando, May 2025 & May 2026.
Table 2 · Orlando visitation
| Year | Total visitors | YoY change | Business/meetings note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 75,333,800 | +1.8% | Group meetings +3.9% to 5.62M |
| 2025 | 76,663,200 | +1.8% | Record; most-visited U.S. destination |
The Orange County Convention Center, by the numbers
The Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) is the second-largest convention center in the United States, behind only McCormick Place in Chicago, about 7 million total square feet, with 2.1 million square feet of exhibit space. It hosts nearly 200 events a year and welcomes more than 2 million attendees.
Two trend lines matter for 2026: attendance is climbing back past 2 million, and the center’s economic impact is on a steep upward curve. Note the distinction below between ACTUAL reported figures and the FY2025–26 PROJECTION.
Figure 2 · OCCC attendees by reporting period. The final bar is a projection. Note: periods mix fiscal-year and calendar-year reporting, see table.
Figure 3 · OCCC estimated annual economic impact. The $5B FY2025–26 figure is a projection; earlier figures are reported.
Table 3 · OCCC by the numbers
| Period | Events | Attendees | Economic impact | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2023–24 | 189 | 1.75M | $3.9B | ACTUAL |
| FY2024–25 | 173 | 1.8M | $4.2B | ACTUAL |
| 2025 (calendar) | 187 | 2.05M | ≈$4.6B* | ACTUAL |
| FY2025–26 | 185 | 2.3M | $5.0B | PROJECTION |
A $560M expansion is underway
The OCCC broke ground in December 2025 on the $560 million Grand Concourse expansion of its North-South Building — adding 44,000 square feet of meeting space and a 100,000-square-foot ballroom. Construction runs from early 2026 to completion in 2029, funded by the county’s Tourist Development Tax.
What major events is Orlando hosting in 2026?
A packed calendar of national trade shows and conventions. A sample of confirmed 2026 events at the OCCC:
Table 4 · Selected major 2026 events at the OCCC
| Event | Dates | Attendance | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design & Construction Week (IBS + KBIS) | Feb 17–19 | 115,000+ | Combined; IBS’s final Orlando show |
| PGA Show | Jan 20–23 | 34,000+ | Largest since 2009; 90 countries |
| MegaCon Orlando | Mar 19–22 | 200,000+†| Organizer-reported |
| Global Pet Expo | Mar 25–27 | ~20,000 | 1,000+ exhibitors |
| SHRM26 | Jun 16–19 | ~20,000 | HR industry |
| Southern Baptist Convention | Jun 7–10 | 21,144 | Registrants |
What is Orlando’s event economy actually worth?
Central Florida tourism generated a record $94.5 billion in economic impact in 2024 and supports more than 468,000 jobs, 37% of all jobs in the region. A cleaner real-time gauge of event and visitor activity is the Tourist Development Tax (TDT), the 6% levy on hotels and short-term rentals. Orange County collects more of it than any other Florida county: $384.6 million in FY2025.
Through late 2025 and into 2026, monthly TDT collections kept setting records with double-digit year-over-year growth, a direct signal that convention and event demand is strong heading into 2026.
Figure 4 · Orange County Tourist Development Tax, monthly collections (bars) and year-over-year growth (line). Months shown are non-contiguous, as reported. Source: Orange County Comptroller, 2025–26.
Table 5 · Tourist Development Tax, selected months (2025–26)
| Month | Collections | YoY growth |
|---|---|---|
| May 2025 | $30.0M | +5.7% |
| June 2025 | $33.7M | +10.3% |
| July 2025 | $29.6M | +11.1% |
| August 2025 | $25.7M | +10.7% |
| October 2025 | $33.9M | +15.1% |
| January 2026 | $35.0M | +6.0% |
What’s driving corporate events in 2026?
The national and global backdrop is bullish, which matters because Orlando captures an outsized share of it. Business events generated $1.3 trillion in direct global spending in 2025, and planner optimism for 2026 is at its highest since 2021. The clear theme: in-person is firmly back, budgets are rising, and cost pressure is the top concern.
Table 6 · National & global event industry snapshot (2026)
| Metric | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Direct global spending on business events (2025) | $1.3T | Events Industry Council |
| Planners optimistic about 2026 | 85% | Amex GBT 2026 Forecast |
| Expected rise in cost per attendee, 2026 | ~6% | Amex GBT 2026 Forecast |
| Planners expecting budgets to rise 5–14% | 64% | Northstar/Cvent PULSE |
| Planners integrating AI into planning | ~50% | Amex GBT 2026 Forecast |
| Say in-person events are their most trusted channel | 80% | Freeman Trends Report |
How much does video matter to events in 2026?
A lot, and it’s measurable. Video is now a default line item, not a nice-to-have: 91% of businesses use video marketing in 2026, and 82% say it delivers good ROI. For planners specifically, imagery and video influence 48% of the decision to even send an RFP to a venue. An event that isn’t captured well is an event that ends when the doors close.
Figure 5 · Video marketing benchmarks, 2026. Sources: Wyzowl 2026 State of Video Marketing; Cvent Planner Sourcing Report 2026 (RFP figure).
Table 7 · Video & event content benchmarks (2026)
| Benchmark | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Marketers who say video is important to strategy | 93% | Wyzowl 2026 |
| Businesses using video marketing | 91% | Wyzowl 2026 |
| Say video helped increase sales & leads | 88% | Wyzowl 2026 |
| Consumers wanting more brand video | 84% | Wyzowl 2026 |
| Video marketers reporting good ROI | 82% | Wyzowl 2026 |
| Venue RFP decisions influenced by images/video | 48% | Cvent 2026 |
The Aktion take
When 187 events pass through the OCCC in a year, the ones that keep working after the closing keynote are the ones that got captured. That’s the whole job of event video: turn a three-day room into a year of content. Aktion Productions runs it on a simple three-part process, Plan, Roll, Cut, built for the pace of a live Orlando show.
Frequently asked questions
Is Orlando really the #1 convention city in the U.S.?
Yes. Cvent ranked Orlando the #1 meeting destination in North America in 2026, its 11th consecutive year at the top, and every year since 2015. The ranking is based on more than $20 billion in sourcing activity across Cvent’s platforms in 2025.
How big is the Orange County Convention Center?
It’s the second-largest convention center in the United States, with about 7 million total square feet and 2.1 million square feet of exhibit space. Only McCormick Place in Chicago is larger. It hosts nearly 200 events and over 2 million attendees a year.
How many people visited Orlando in 2025?
Orlando welcomed a record 76.7 million visitors in 2025, up 1.8% over 2024. It remains the most-visited destination in the United States, per Visit Orlando.
What’s the biggest event in Orlando in 2026?
By raw attendance, MegaCon Orlando (200,000+, organizer-reported) and Design & Construction Week, the combined International Builders’ Show and KBIS in February (115,000+), are among the largest events on the 2026 calendar at the OCCC.
How much is Orlando’s tourism and event economy worth?
Central Florida tourism generated a record $94.5 billion in economic impact in 2024 and supports more than 468,000 jobs. Orange County collected $384.6 million in Tourist Development Tax in FY2025, the most of any Florida county.
Sources & methodology
Figures are compiled from primary sources where available and labeled by year. Projections (notably the FY2025–26 OCCC estimates) are flagged distinctly from reported actuals. National and global event-industry and video figures are labeled as such and are not Orlando-specific. Organizer-reported attendance (e.g., MegaCon) is noted where it has not been independently audited.
- Cvent — 2026 Top Meeting Destinations (May 2026)
- Visit Orlando — Annual visitation releases (May 2025, May 2026) & Data and Trends
- Orange County Government newsroom — OCCC / Grand Concourse (Dec 2025)
- Orange County Comptroller — Tourist Development Tax reports (2025–26)
- Events Industry Council / Oxford Economics — Global Economic Significance of Business Events (2026)
- American Express GBT — 2026 Global Meetings & Events Forecast
- Northstar / Cvent — Meetings Industry PULSE; Freeman Trends Report
- Wyzowl — 2026 State of Video Marketing; Cvent Planner Sourcing Report 2026
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