BY: BOW MOWAT
While there’s no doubt that Canadian visitors are down so far in 2025, Experience Kissimmee’s President and CEO, DT Minich made it clear that “we will do whatever we need to do” to ensure Canadians continue to visit Kissimmee.
“I try to get up here at least once a year, just to touch base with all of our tour operators and our airline partners and I think this year, it’s probably more important than anything since COVID, that we’re here to show that Canada is a very important market to us,” Minich said in an interview with Travel Courier.
And he added: “I think it’s really important to send a message that we believe in this market and we’re going to support this market and we’ll get through this just like we got through COVID.”
In terms of numbers, Minich said that 2024 “was really good for the Canadian market,” however, so far in 2025, Canadian visits to Kissimmee are down between 18% to 20%.
“You know, I think some of that is attributed to politics, but some of it is probably attributed to the [Canadian] dollar as well,” he said and Experience Kissimmee is already responding to the exchange rate situation.
To that end, Minich said that Experience Kissimmee will be “pushing the value proposition really heavily for this fall and winter because we know the Canadians are going to want to get out of the snow and the cold and we have a unique product, that with the theme parks and our nature, you can’t really experience anywhere else.”
And it’s certainly not all doom and gloom, with Minich telling Travel Courier that his destination is “having a super good summer.”
“I think it’s really important to send a message that we believe in this market [Canada] and we’re going to support this market and we’ll get through this just like we got through COVID.”
– DT Minich, President and CEO, Experience Kissimmee
“Bed tax collections overall are up 6% for the year-to-date — our year starts Oct. 1, so that covers late last winter and then this year. In April, we had a jump of 17% in bed tax [collections] and I think quite a bit of it is because of the opening of Epic [Universal Studios Epic Universe] and it has been extremely successful and popular and in demand,” he said.
Considering that Universal Studios Epic Universe is the first theme part to open in Central Florida in 25 years, it is not at all surprising that it’s drawing significant visitations from across the country and around the world.
However, there’s lots more going on in Kissimmee, with Minich telling Travel Courier about Everest Place, a major new development that’s now under construction and will feature two hotel-condos.
Everest Place, Minich said “will be anchored on each end by a hotel-condo project and in the middle, there’s going to be a huge lagoon with upscale shopping and dining.”
On one end will be a Nickelodeon hotel and condo that will appeal to the family market, while on the other will be a Mysk hotel and condo – an upscale, luxury brand that will be operated by Kempinski Hotels.
One nifty bit of news that Minich brought with him on his Toronto visit was that the destination is in the process of developing a Latin Culinary Trail.
Minich explained that Osceola County has a large Latino Community and, as a result, the area has a huge Latin culinary scene.
“You know, all these destinations in the U.S. have Beer Trails or Wine Trails, and I said, we need to do a Latin Culinary Trail,” he said, and to that end, Experience Kissimmee is working with Atlas Obscura and Gastro Obscura to develop the trail.
“It’s under development right now and it will be called the Latin Culinary Trail [when it launches in the spring of 2026]. It will eventually have 40 different restaurants, an interactive map and we’re going to do profiles on some of the owners and the chefs because these are not chain, Latin restaurants, they’re all individually owned and there’s some really rich stories about how these people ended up coming here. We’ve even got an Agave Farm that grows agave and then makes their own Tequila and things — and there’s some really great stories”
In other news, with Miami set to host some 2026 FIFA World Cup games, Minich said that Experience Kissimmee will be promoting two-centre holidays, where visitors can come up to visit between games. Rail connections offered by Brightline will make that a simple proposition.
Yet Kissimmee’s secret sauce, so to speak, is the vacation home product that it offers visitors – a product that is both economical and provides visitors with flexibility.
Currently, it has 32,000 of the purpose-built, professionally managed homes – which certainly provides an antidote to the exchange rate, with Minich pointing to the value of staying in a vacation home, “where you don’t have to eat three meals out a day; you’ve got your own little swimming pool, so you don’t have to go and do something every day, you can just hang out at your own pool.”
Along with its vacation home product, Minich also pointed to the natural wonders of Kissimmee.
“We have some really amazing, natural, eco-tourism experiences. We have some incredible attractions that Mother Nature built. We’re the headwaters of the Everglades. We’ve got tree trekking. We’ve got ziplining over alligators. We’ve got airboat experiences,” he said.
As Minich sees it, consumers are changing, observing that “there are a lot of people that are craving authenticity and getting to know ‘not the tourist side of the destination.’ So that’s why we really promote some of these eco-tourism opportunities; that’s why we’re developing this Culinary Trail – to show that we’re not just all theme parks.”
And he added: “You know, I always say in the morning you can be standing in the shadow of the world’s most famous castle and literally 30 minutes from there you can be in the shadows of 300 and 400-year-old Cypress Trees on the headwaters of the Everglades. So, you’ve got the best of both worlds.”
