About 1,400 thrill-seekers found themselves ziplining through Millennium Park this weekend in freezing cold and snowy weather and possibly considering, well, zipping down to Florida in search of warmer weather.
The free 190-foot-long zipline experience—beginning on a three-story platform set up in the North Chase Promenade—was part of a Florida tourism campaign with the slogan “Escape Cold. Warm Your Heart” to encourage Chicagoans to visit Kissimmee, near Orlando and Walt Disney World.
“For this campaign, we decided to bring some of the warm-weather fun to our freezing friends here in Chicago,” D.T. Minich, president and CEO of Experience Kissimmee, a tourism marketing organization, said in a news release.
Nearly 1,000 coats were collected over the three-day weekend, according to Experience Kissimmee, which asked people to bring a new or gently used coat to donate for One Warm Coat. The coats will be distributed to local children and adults in need.
Experience Kissimmee said roughly 1,400 people got hooked up to the zipline which sloped down to the ground, and the daredevils were guided into the “Toasting Tent” to warm up, sip on hot cocoa, meet and snap a pic of a baby alligator from the Gatorland adventure theme park and register to win prizes including a Kissimmee vacation.
It makes sense that Florida would try to lure Chicagoans to vacation there considering summer is more than four months away and bundling up and wearing puffy winter coats have grown tiresome for many.
It turns out that a number of Kissimmee visitors come from the Midwest and Northeast, mainly Chicago and New York, and research showed Chicago is a “top feeder market” for Kissimmee, said Nori Rodriguez, communications manager for Experience Kissimmee.
Chicago currently has 22 nonstop flights daily to the Orlando International Airport, and that number bumps up to 26 only for the month of March, she said.
@lvivanco | lvivanco@redeyechicago.com
