By JACK FICHTER/Sentinel staff
Everything is pointing to a “tremendous” 2021 tourist season, according to Matthew Doherty, executive director of the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority.
Doherty moderated the 13th annual Jersey Shorecast, sponsored by the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton University, held May 12 via Zoom.
Doherty said it is a time to start being optimistic as gatherings return, restrictions are lifted, the vaccination rate increases and the number of hospitalizations and positive COVID tests decline.
He said Atlantic City has allowed open containers of alcoholic beverages in the tourism district encompassing the entire boardwalk and the “orange loop,” a section of the city that includes Tennessee Avenue, St. James Place and New York Avenue from Pacific Avenue to the boardwalk.
Doherty said the police issued no tickets and no arrests were made in the open container area.
Diane Wieland, Cape May County director of tourism, said beach towns faired well in 2020 because the public was looking for a getaway after being cooped up in their homes during the pandemic. Tourism in the state was down 36 percent but Cape May County was down only 21 percent, she said.
In the beginning of April last year, the county’s occupancy rate was down 99 percent, Wieland said, but tourism in fall 2020 outpaced the same time in 2019. Due to the loss of Canadian visitors due to a closed border, the county tourism office tightened its radius for marketing.
In July and August, Canadians normally represent about 7 percent of visitors, she said.
“The campgrounds were a huge part of the resurgence,” Wieland said. “People were looking for that safe vacation getaway.”
She said nature-based vacation options are important and represent a $700 million industry in Cape May County.
“We have a large number of baby boomers — about 47 percent of our visitors are 55 plus — so now we’re taking a look at how we reach and entice a younger generation, the millennials especially,” Wieland said.
She said she was looking forward to another great year following momentum that started at the end of last July and carried into the fall. Reservations and rental numbers are skyrocketing, she said.
“We hope within the next two to three years, we can rebuild and get back to our 2019 numbers. But it’s a process,” Wieland said.
Jamie Hoagland, marketing director for the Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in Atlantic City, said they partnered with DoorDash and Uber Eats for deliveries. She said the open container law benefited her business.
Hoagland said they created fewer “touch points” by converting menus to QR codes. By using QR code scans, they determined the majority of their customers came from Bronx, N.Y.
Doherty said when casinos were shuttered during the pandemic, online gaming “really took off,” including sports betting.
Atlantic City is now anticipating cannabis tourism.
“Much like breweries that have popped up all over the place, now there’s going to be cannabis folks who are going to display how it’s grown, how it’s manufactured, how it’s tailored and also the retail component as well,” he said. “That’s just another tool in the toolbox to help bring people to Atlantic City for nongaming-related issues.”
Wieland said Cape May County has seen people coming from urban areas because they can work from home and their children can attend school virtually. She second homes were being filled that would normally be empty during winter months.
A new normal for the county would be more year-round residents, according to Wieland.
The county saw a huge rise in bookings through platforms such as Airbnb. She said Sea Isle City generated $111,000 in 2019 in online bookings but then exploded to $4 million in bookings in 2020.
Larry Sieg, president and CEO of Meet AC, Atlantic City’s convention and visitors bureau, said he believed larger conventions would break down into smaller, regional meetings.
Oliver Cooke, professor of economics at Stockton University and editor of the South Jersey Economic Review, said in the first quarter of this year, Cape May County showed a 12 percent increase in employment over the same time in 2020, while Atlantic City showed a 12 percent decrease in employment.
“The concerns over inflation and the bottlenecks as they relate to all sorts of industries, whether you’re talking about commodities prices or even if you’re talking just about labor input at this point, I do think these are kind of temporary bumps on the way back to the new normal or whatever we end up calling it,” Cooke said.
Sieg said any time the nation experiences disasters such as Hurricane Sandy and 9/11, there is a recovery period.
“We don’t flip a switch and go back to the way we were,” he said. “There is usually a three- to five-year recovery period after any type of natural disaster.”
Wieland said the Wildwoods Convention Center is starting to book events.
Cooke said all national indicators suggest an excellent summer season.
Some people continue to be fearful of flying and there are those who do not want to be in large urban centers, which signals a robust summer season for the shore.