By TIM KELLY and MADDY VITALE
Somehow it all comes together. This year’s Labor Day weekend in Ocean City appears to be no exception.
The final weekend of the unofficial summer season seems to be the proverbial icing on a summer season home-baked cake.
“It seems like July Fourth was yesterday. It has gone by so fast,” said Michele Gillian, executive director of the Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce. “Labor Day was a week early this year, so the season was cut down by a week. Still, it seemed to go by really quickly. It was a banner season for us.”
Gillian said the commuting visitors arrived without a hitch (and were still flooding into the city throughout the weekend) and the town was doing its thing.
“Everybody gets here, and we’re ready for them,” Gillian said with a chuckle.
The big predictors of such an outlook have shown significant gains, she said.
The city’s 7-mile-long beachfront, which is much bigger than neighboring towns, allows it to handle enormous crowds.
Ocean City tops all of the other shore towns in the state in total beach tag revenue, often coming in at or near the $4 million mark.
Gillian remarked that beach tag sales were a strong indicator of an amazing season.
“Beach tag sale revenues and parking lot revenues are noticeably increasing this year,” she said. “August figures are incomplete. June and July were up enough (and her observations of crowds this month) that we’re confident the final numbers will show an above-average summer season, if not a record-breaking one.”
Ocean City Beach Patrol Chief Mark Jamieson summed up what he thought was the best description of the season in an earlier interview.
“This is a summer to remember,” Jamieson said. “Definitely one of the best ones. I can only remember one day when it rained start to finish. This is a season to remember as far as consecutive sunny days.”
The summer also proved to be a banner season for the 150-plus Boardwalk merchants, according to Wes Kazmarck, president of the Boardwalk Merchants Association.
“It’s been an excellent summer. We had a really strong June, and Fourth of July was excellent,” Kazmarck said. “Then in the third week of July, it was super strong. We talk about how you won’t have a perfect season of weather, but this year it’s been great. All of the holidays were super strong too and all of the weekends.”
Even mid-week, which is traditionally a slower time for merchants, was busier than in previous years, Kazmarck noted.
And while he believes weather certainly plays a major role in vacationers’ plans to come down for a visit, he also thinks the bump in vacationers visiting the resort in late August shows some other factors are also at play.
“I do think people are starting to realize that the end of the summer season is a great time in Ocean City,” Kazmarck said. “There is nothing wrong with coming down at the end of August, and I am anticipating a strong September. As long as the weather stays nice, we will see a strong September, too.”
Gillian said her organization, which represents businesses in and around Ocean City, and the city itself, including police, beach patrol, fire and EMS, beef up in the summer to keep everyone safe. The city also offers a full lineup of special events throughout the season. The Public Works department keeping everything clean and there are some guarded beaches past Labor Day.
Gillian said only a team effort makes it possible, “with everyone working together” for the common good of a city that relies on the most important 12 weeks of its 12-month economy.
And as Kazmarck and Jamieson mentioned, Gillian said almost every beach day was a “good” beach day weather-wise during the summer of 2019.
“The weekends have been really been great, as far as the weather, and that really makes a huge difference between an OK season and a great one,” she said. “We couldn’t have asked for a better year.”
She was quick to note that increased marketing efforts of the city and the Chamber of Commerce factored into the equation.
An aggressive advertising campaign in the Philadelphia region, including TV and billboards on the bridges leaving Philadelphia, came into play, she said.
Gillian also credited the vacation app available at www.oceancityvacation.com as invaluable, giving visitors an easy smartphone handle on events, special deals from merchants and insider tips on everything Ocean City.
“The app has been a great help. Visitors are savvy as to what they want, and we’re getting more savvy about getting them informed,” Gillian explained.
When you’ve got a year-round population of approximately 11,000 that immediately swells to 150,000 or in this year’s instance even more than that, it’s all about preparation, she said.
For Ocean City, that prep work has reached a scientific level which in turn creates a comfort level.
“When everything comes together it’s a great thing. That has been the case this year,” Gillian summed up.
