CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE — Last year, Cape May County’s tourism industry recovered 96 percent of the business lost in 2020, the worst year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cape May County Tourism Director Diane Wieland presented a host of encouraging facts and figures May 25 during the county’s annual tourism conference. She said direct tourism spending in the county totaled $6.6 billion in 2021, or about $288 million below 2019 spending.
Almost 20 percent of tourism dollars spent in the state are spent in Cape May County, Wieland said.
She said the recovery is based on returning to tourism spending levels from 2019, which totaled $6.9 billion in this county, a record year. Wieland said the goal was not only to recover to 2019 levels but go beyond it. The county broke the $2 billion annual mark in tourist spending in 1994 and the last year reached $6.6 billion.
“We had lost in 2020, $1.5 billion,” she said.
Cape May County ranks second in the state behind Atlantic County in tourist spending. Wieland said many visitors to Cape May County spend a day or a night in Atlantic City, which she termed a “perfect partnership.”
The county outpaced 21 others in food and beverage, retail and recreation spending by visitors, she said.
And that’s without chain hotels, stores and restaurants.
“Obviously, it doesn’t matter to the visitor,” Wieland said. “When you take a look at it, our visitors aren’t coming here so they can go to Applebee’s.”
She said the county exceeded the 2019 figures for lodging and food and beverage last year.
In 2019, 10.2 million persons visited the county compared to 10.3 million in 2021.
“We made a full recovery in visitation, not every county can say that,” Wieland said.
Occupancy tax was up 1 percent last year. The average overnight visitor in the county spends $374, she said.
Record numbers of visitors are being seen outside the summer season in January, February, March, November and December, according to Wieland.
The COVID pandemic set the county back $1.5 billion, or about seven years in tourism revenue growth, returning spending to 2015 levels, she said. This county lost more tourism revenue than 15 other counties generated in 2020.
Lodging took the biggest hit in 2020 with $383 million lost, Wieland said, with retail losing 37 percent of revenue, or $367 million.
Statewide tourism spending dropped 36.8 percent while Cape May County saw a 21 percent drop.
In 2020, the county lost 5,039 jobs but recovered 5,000 jobs in 2021, Wieland said.
On the recovery side, in July and August 2021, more than $4 million in occupancy tax was collected, a record amount, she said.
Of all jobs in the county, 48.6 percent are in the tourism industry with a total of 63 percent when indirect jobs are added.
Wieland said a trend since COVID is visitors seeking to be outdoors, adding social distancing continues to be a priority of some. Road trips are in vogue again with some tourists reluctant to fly to destinations, she said.
“If I’m going with my family and there’s four, I might get in the car no matter what the gas costs. It’s going to be a whole lot cheaper than buying four tickets on an airplane,” Wieland said.
The border with Canada was closed from March 2020 until November 2021. Wieland said about 7 percent to 9 percent of visitors to the county come from Quebec, representing 100,000 persons spending $60 million annually.
Second- and third-generation families are visiting the county from Canada, she said. Wieland said she met with the vice president of the Canadian Automobile Association, which has 2 million members.
“Give our 2022 visitors the GOAT vacation they want,” she said. “GOAT-Greatest of All Trips, that’s what they want, that’s what our job is to create that GOAT vacation.”
“It’s not about recovery right now, it’s more about expanding and recouping what we lost,” she continued.
By JACK FICHTER/Sentinel staff