NEWS: Here's What Happened at Florida's Orange County Task Force Meetings Today

Yesterday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the majority of Florida (with exceptions for a few southeastern counties) would begin “phase one” of re-opening starting on May 4th.

This announcement was a major topic of discussion at today’s Orange County Economic Recovery Task Force, a task force who has had working committees meeting daily to discuss the best guidelines for reopening the businesses of Florida’s Orange County, which includes many of the theme parks. In fact, the task force includes representatives from the Orlando theme parks, including Thomas Mazloum, senior vice president of Walt Disney World Resorts and Transportation Operations.

The Orange County Economic Recovery Task Force met again today (you can read our summary of yesterday’s meeting here), where Governor DeSantis’ proposal was a major topic of discussion. While the “phase one” re-opening will begin on May 4th, currently, Orange County is working on their own proposal, which is expected to be announced tomorrow. While local governments cannot relax the regulations of the state’s plan, they can create stricter regulations as they see fit.

Working Group for Bringing Back Tourism

While the representatives of the Orlando theme parks are not part of Orange County’s Working Group for Bringing Back Tourism, they are still a major part of discussion. At today’s meeting, Kelley Teague, Director of Legislative Affairs for the Orange County Government, confirmed some of the expected guidelines for phase one and beyond.

Phase One and Beyond

Teague reiterated that, from the governor’s plan, masks should not be mandatory, but instead a recommendation to follow CDC’s set guidelines. She also confirmed from the governor’s guidelines of 25% restaurant capacity, that that number does not include staff.

Disney launched a new collection of face masks on their site earlier today ©shopDisney

Teague also touched upon what could be looked forward to in phase two, when tourism elements can start coming back into play. She reiterated Governor DeSantis’ comments that the time between phases will be based on data, and could potentially be weeks, not months. She did comment that, because this is all data-reliant, it’s also possible there could be a “regression” if data begins showing an increase to the crisis.

When looking towards phase two, members of the committee brought up some interesting notes on the theme parks, as well. While we won’t know of official reopening plans or procedures from Disney World, Universal, and the other Orlando theme parks until they provide it, recommendations from the Re-Open Florida Task Force released earlier today seem to imply that theme parks could potentially be looked at as businesses that could re-open beginning in phase two.

Hotels, Retail, and Restaurants

In the Orange County Task Force meeting, they also touched upon restaurants, retail stores, and hotels at the theme parks, mentioning that it might be best to treat these components as “individual” versus the whole.

With restaurants and retail stores set to be able to re-open as soon as May 4th at 25% capacity, the group outlined the precautionary measures and guidelines that will have to be followed. These include increased cleaning and sanitation, monitoring employee health and personal hygiene, updating floor plans to space out tables in restaurants, and more.

For hotels, protocols will include encouraging employees to stay home if they are sick, remove/reduce customer service phones in common areas, and increase length of time between vacancy and cleaning roomsincluding plastic barriers at front desks. These are in addition to some of the other suggestions that were given earlier in the week, , along with getting rid of coffee machines and coffee cups in rooms.

Importance of the Theme Parks

One message that has been repeated time and time again in these meetings is the importance of the theme parks. Jesse Martinez, General Manager of Alfond Inn, mentioned that the re-opening of Disney World and Universal Orlando will “open the flood gates” when it comes to bringing tourism back to the city.

When it comes to re-opening, George Aguel, CEO of Visit Orlando, thinks the most important step is building consumer confidence to the safety of the tourism hot spot. But, according to them, Disney is a major part of bringing back tourism, and “without Disney open, [Orlando] would never open at 100% supply.”