Mother Nature smiled on Ocean City again this summer, and that left the business community grinning as well.
After a relatively wet June, Ocean City saw a run of near-perfect weekend weather and no prolonged stretches of extreme heat or rain.
In a tourist economy that lives and dies by attracting vacationers and day-trippers to the beach, the weather is always a primary factor. Business leaders are calling summer 2015 a success.
One of the best indicators of summer visitor traffic is beach tag revenue, and Ocean City broke a record in 2015.
The city brought in $4,184,000 in 2015, up $135,000 from $4,048,000 in 2014, when the city cracked the $4 million mark for the first time, according to preliminary season-ending numbers released by Finance Director Frank Donato.
Sales of discounted preseason tags were up by up 4,000 tags (or $80,000), Donato said. But by the end of June, overall revenue was behind the pace of 2014. A very strong July and August made up the difference and more, Donato said. There were no fee increases in 2015.
Revenue from parking fees reflect the same trend. As of Aug. 31, Ocean City had collected $2,706,000 up about $125,000 from 2014’s $2,581,000. (Final parking revenue figures will not be available until the season ends in October.)
Donato said a lot of the June rain came in the form of evening thunderstorms, and June 2015 was down $36,000 compared to June 2014. By the end of a “monstrous July,” to-date revenue was back up by $60,000. August was equally strong.
Donato said a few more parking spaces at the Fifth Street and Boardwalk lot and a few more days of $20 parking fees helped with the increase.
Sewerage flow reports — another good indicator of the number of summer visitors in town — showed a July 2015 on par with a strong July 2014 (read more: “Tale of the Toilet: July 2015 Indicates a Strong Summer for Tourism).
Lots of bodies on the beach do not always translate to lots of shoppers downtown.
Asbury Avenue merchants had good holiday weekends, and the Tuesday and Thursday morning entertainment promotions were well-attended, Downtown Merchants Association President Paul Cunningham said.
He said restaurants and food establishments, services and stores with low price points fared well. Other merchants saw mixed results.
As other business leaders reported, Cunningham said June was soft, but the downtown saw a strong August. He said the weekend of this year’s Night in Venice celebration (earlier in July than usual) did not draw the normal crowds.
He said he’s heard good feedback on new stores on the Avenue, particularly about Island Gypsy, a women’s clothing store at 760 Asbury Avenue.
“It was cold in May, wet in June, and hot in July,” Boardwalk Merchants Association Chairman Wes Kazmarck said. “We needed a good August, and we got it.”
Kazmarck said the Labor Day late in the calendar could be perceived as mixed blessing — with stores fully staffed for thin late-August crowds. But he said Labor Day Weekend was very strong.
Overall, he called the summer a success.
Ocean City Board of Realtors President Gloria Votta said the season has been “awesome” with individual agencies reporting 10 to 15 percent increases in rentals this season.
Votta said overall occupancy rates for the island are hard to determine because individual units are part of different (and sometimes duplicate) databases. But she said everything was booked straight through the last week of August, and with many owners to their properties for Labor Day Weekend, it was hard to find any availability on the holiday weekend.
Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Michele Gillian said June was a little weak, but the good weather made July and August exceptional for summer tourist economy. She said the season was capped off by “one of the best Labor Day Weekends ever.”
