Sea Isle has featured the family-friendly theme "The Forecast is Fun" for its summer tourism campaigns. (Courtesy visitsicnj.com)
By Donald Wittkowski
A downward trend in revenue generated by rental permits for vacation homes has cut into the funding for Sea Isle City’s summer marketing campaign, but tourism officials stressed that they still have enough money to promote the beach town.
Funding for the Sea Isle City Tourism Commission was $110,000 five years ago, but came in at $100,000 for 2017 and could fall even more for the 2018 advertising budget, the officials said.
The Tourism Commission is funded by revenue from the city’s mercantile licenses and rental permits. However, income from rental permits has been on the decline, apparently due to a shift in Sea Isle’s vacation market.
City Councilman William Kehner, who sits on the Tourism Commission’s board, explained that more and more homeowners are using their houses for their own vacations instead of renting them out to summer tourists.
Kehner said about 75 percent of the vacation homes are now occupied by their owners. As a result, rental permits have plummeted from about 2,500 to 1,500, he noted.
“They naturally look at the trend that 75 percent of people are using their own homes,” Kehner told the Tourism Commission members during their meeting Thursday.
The commission anticipates spending $100,000 for its 2018 summer marketing and advertising campaign. However, James Bennett, the commission’s chairman, pointed out there is a possibility the actual figure could be around $95,000 to $98,000 due to declining revenue from rental permits.
Commission member Chris Donohue asked Diane Merson, the city’s tourism representative, what could be done if the revenue continues to fall. Merson indicated that the city might have to step in and contribute money for some of the tourism advertising.
“We’re going to have to ask the city to pay for some of the advertising. I don’t know how that would bode with the city, but there’s no way around it,” Merson said during the commission meeting.
In an interview afterward, both Merson and Bennett said there are no concerns at this time that declining revenue will harm the commission’s marketing campaign.
Merson called it only a “slight shift” in funding that would have to be considered in greater detail “somewhere down the road.”
“We’re not in any way in any danger of not being able to put together a marketing or advertising campaign,” she said.
Sea Isle has featured the family-friendly theme "The Forecast is Fun" for its summer tourism campaigns. (Courtesy visitsicnj.com)
In the meantime, the Tourism Commission hopes to strengthen its finances by having the Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce and Revitalization pay off a $17,000 debt.
The money owed by the Chamber stems from a “We’re Ready” advertising campaign launched by the commission in 2013 to attract tourists back to Sea Isle after Hurricane Sandy pummeled the Jersey Shore in 2012.
Costing about $67,000, the advertising campaign was directed through the Chamber, making it responsible for funding it, Merson said. So far, the Chamber has reimbursed the Tourism Commission about $50,000 for the campaign, but stopped making payments two years ago, leaving the Chamber about $17,000 short.
“There’s been no payment in the past two years, which is the problem,” Bennett said.
At Bennett’s suggestion, the commission agreed to send a letter to the Chamber requesting payment of the money. Christopher Glancey, the Chamber’s president, could not be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, the Tourism Commission is expected to unveil its 2018 summer marketing campaign in January.
Like every other beach resort along the Jersey Shore, Sea Isle is trying to distinguish itself amid fierce competition for the tourist dollar. The summer marketing campaign is the centerpiece of Sea Isle’s strategy to separate itself from the clutter.
The campaign blends more traditional forms of advertising such as billboards, print media and visitor guides with a digital marketing strategy that recognizes the upward trend in mobile communications and social media.
“It’s really, really important for us to have a good mobile presence,” said Mickey Coskey, owner of Seven Mile Publishing, the marketing consultant for the Tourism Commission.
Coskey released figures for 2017 showing that 62 percent of the people who accessed the Sea Isle tourism website www.visitsicnj.com used their mobile devices to do so. That compared with 27 percent of the web visitors using their desktop computers and 11 percent using their tablets.
