Orlando cemented its status as the most visited destination in the United States in 2025, welcoming a record-breaking 76.7 million visitors, according to new data from Visit Orlando. The milestone comes at an interesting moment for the region’s tourism landscape, as Disney separately reported a 1% decline in domestic theme park attendance during fiscal year 2025. Here’s the latest.
Orlando Sets Tourism Record as Disney Attendance Dips
The 76.7 million visitor figure represents a 1.8% increase over 2024 and the highest visitation total in the destination’s history. The announcement was made at Visit Orlando’s annual National Travel and Tourism Week event at the Orange County Convention Center.
Domestic visitation grew by 2.2%, reaching 70.3 million visitors, also a record. Overnight visitation accounted for 70% of domestic visitors, or 49.2 million travelers, representing a 1.8% year-over-year increase. Visits by Floridians increased by 3.4%; however, the domestic visitor mix remained predominantly out-of-state.
On the international side, visitation totaled 6.3 million visitors in 2025, down 2.4%, largely due to a decline in travel from Canada. Canada remained Orlando’s top international market despite a 13.3% decline, attracting 1.1 million visitors. Several markets did reach record highs, including the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, and Japan.
The top five international origin markets for Orlando in 2025 were:
- Canada: 1,119,300 (down 13.3%)
- United Kingdom: 933,500 (up 2.8%)
- Brazil: 736,300 (up 5.6%)
- Mexico: 458,500 (up 4.6%)
- Colombia: 360,000 (up 5.0%)
Orlando’s visitor mix in 2025 continued to skew toward leisure travel, representing 81% domestic leisure visitors, 10% domestic business travelers, and 8% international visitors.
The city-wide tourism record creates a notable contrast with Disney’s own performance metrics. The company disclosed in its fiscal 2025 earnings that domestic park attendance slipped 1% compared to the prior year. Of course, Disney’s domestic figures include both Walt Disney World and Disneyland. Disney does not report Walt Disney World attendance figures alone. It’s also worth noting that Disney’s attendance metrics for fiscal 2025 are not the same as calendar 2025; more on that in a bit.
The data suggests that competitors, convention business, and other Orlando attractions may be absorbing a greater share of the region’s visitors. The group meetings segment showed particularly strong momentum for Orlando, increasing 3.1% year over year to reach 5.8 million visitors, reinforcing Orlando’s position as the nation’s leading meetings destination.
For Disney, the attendance softness hasn’t gone unaddressed. The company has been investing heavily in new attractions and experiences across both Walt Disney World and Disneyland, with several major projects in various stages of development and construction. Historically, new attractions and expansions have boosted attendance for Disney theme parks.
While the data for Disney includes fiscal 2025, which ended in October 2025, attendance figures since then have been mixed as well. Disney reported a 1% increase in attendance for Q1 2026 (calendar Q4), but that was against an unfavorable comparison to the prior year when Hurricane Milton closed the parks briefly.
More recently, Disney reported a 1% dip in quarterly attendance during its recent Q2 2026 earnings report, continuing a flat to declining attendance trend that we’ve been tracking now for a couple of years (2025, 2024).
While a dip in attendance is often picked up by the fan community as a bad thing, Disney executives have been signalling a plan for years now that they would like fewer people in the parks, spending more money. Fewer people lead to a better guest experience, even if each individual guest is spending more than they are used to spending. At the end of the day, Disney has been reporting record revenues in its theme park business, even as attendance dips.
What the Visit Orlando data makes clear is that the broader destination is healthy and growing. Visitors are coming to Orlando in record numbers. The question for Disney is whether it is capturing its historical share of them.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!