Forbes names Orlando number 1 U.S. City for bargain shopping!

View of the Orlando Premium Outlets Vineland Ave from their parking garage.

A few days ago Forbes released an article in which they named Orlando the best U.S. City for bargain shopping. That’s great news for our 50 million visitors each year, virtually all of whom (a) want to shop and (b) are trying to save money! Here is a snippet from the article:

When international tourists arrive in Orlando, their first stop is rarely a Disney property, but one of the city’s 500 factory outlet stores. And they’re looking for a very specific item: an empty suitcase.

According to Susan Lomax, the associate vice president of publicity for the city of Orlando, shopping has become the number one activity for international tourists visiting the city, drawn by the brand names at lower prices afforded by the country’s most concentrated city for outlets. And Lomax’s group, which watches the behavior of these visitors to their city as it increases its attention to shopping as a top tourism draw, reveals an interesting pattern of consumption. “They start in a luggage outlet,” she says, “They buy an empty suitcase and spend the rest of their visit filling it up.

With enough retail space to fill 900 American football fields, it just might take that long. Orlando’s 500 outlet stores, 18 million square feet of gross leasable area of retail space in its major malls, a low consumer price index (97.8) and a low combined tax rate of 6.5%, Disney’s hometown is the No. 1 city on our first ever list of the Best Cities For Bargain Shopping.

View the complete article on Forbes.com

View the full list of top U.S. Cities for bargain shopping