Universal Orlando Resort has lots of plans, including the biggest one of all: a new theme park, Epic Universe, coming in 2025. But Heather Layson Brown, Universal Orlando's senior vice president of destination marketing and sales, wants travel advisors to keep in mind all of the other new products and enhancements coming, starting this summer. News editor Johanna Jainchill spoke with Brown at U.S. Travel's IPW conference in Los Angeles earlier this month.
Heather Layson Brown
Q: What is Universal Orlando debuting before Epic?
A: We have a lot of new content coming onboard. Epic Universe is coming in 2025, but we're also focused on new experiences this summer. We have DreamWorks Land opening June 14 in Universal Studios Florida, which is entirely different than anything out there and a great family attraction. We have a new nighttime lagoon show, "CineSational: A Symphonic Spectacular," with over 600 drones, and a new castle projection show, "Hogwarts Always," in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. On July 3 we're debuting our largest-ever daytime parade, the Universal Mega Movie Parade. It's the first daytime parade we've had in a while and will feature "E.T.," "Back to the Future," "Jaws," "Ghostbusters," "Jurassic World." It's a nod to our heritage.
Q: You launched the first U-Preferred Conference a year ago. Did that grow travel advisor engagement?
A: The response we've had has really been incredible. The travel advisory channel is incredibly powerful. There is so much opportunity there. Not everybody wants to just go online to plan a complex vacation. Especially the more time you spend in market. There is so much value in the travel advisors taking advantage of the training that we have to offer, whether on a new product or just on how to position our experiences and all we have available for families. People typically think of us as a business that's great for families with older kids. With the addition of DreamWorks Land, it's really expanding. If you look around at all of our parks, there's so much to do for families of all ages. DreamWorks Land is a really important addition. We have content from "Shrek," "Trolls," "Kung Fu Panda" and "Gabby's Dollhouse" -- and the response has been amazing. There are also so many VIP and premium products advisors have access to.
Q: How can advisors best stay up to date on these new products?
A: We've seen our webinars, fams and regional training registrations reach capacity on a consistent basis this year, especially our Orlando-based one-day fams, which have been selling out in a matter of hours. We're developing larger fams to accommodate the high demand moving forward and into next year. We also have a webinar schedule available for the whole year with at least two webinars a month on a variety of different topics. From January 2023 to January 2024, there was a nearly 93% increase in training courses completed, in large part due to the new training courses created on Epic Universe.
Q: What else should advisors think about when presenting Universal to clients?
A: There is so much diversity within our product, from the family experiences that are important to the more adult. That's a really strong selling opportunity.
Theme park entertainment is such an important part of what we do on a day-to-day basis, and having that day and night experience is really important for visitors coming into the market. You want to make sure that you're getting value for your money. We like to call it "the last kiss good night:" stay to the very end and have that special memory and see the fireworks and the light shows. When you see people with their children and their families, they just light up.