Theme park wars bring big dollars to Orlando

Tourists flock to Central Florida region for theme parks

ORLANDO, Fla. – From Monsters to penguins and even Transformers, Orlando's theme park wars are heating up and bringing big dollars to the Central Florida region.

"Competition is healthy, which means more reasons to visit Orlando," says Mark Jaronski of Visit Orlando.

The organization has been tracking the influx in the number of tourist flocking to the region, as the theme parks keep rolling out new expansions and renovations, to bring more people to the parks.

"All that were seeing now, the theme parks deserve credit. They had that vision years ago, knowing people would return despite the economy," said Jaronski. "We're seeing the results now from all of their efforts."

According to Visit Orlando, every year since 2010, Orlando has broken the previous year record for the number of tourists to visit.

2012 brought nearly 57 million people to the region and they expect another one and a half percent increase for 2013, which means a lot of dollars and new jobs.

"One-third of all jobs in Orlando are a result of tourism," said Jaronski. "In fact, $32 billion a year is spent by visitors."