With Summer in Mind, Sea Isle City Launches 2018 Tourism Campaign

By Donald Wittkowski Yes, those languid days lounging on a warm, sunny beach are still four or five months away, but tourism officials in Sea Isle City want visitors to already begin thinking of their summer vacations at the shore. On Christmas Day, the city’s Tourism Commission placed a digital billboard on the Walt Whitman Bridge in Philadelphia that beckons visitors with a summer beach scene and the words, “New Year’s Resolution – Spend more time in Sea Isle City.” Preparing for the 2018 summer season, the commission will ratchet up its marketing campaign in the first week of February by placing two more strategically located digital billboards on the I-95 corridor in Philadelphia to entice tourists to Sea Isle. “We wanted to get a fast start,” explained Mickey Coskey, owner of Seven Mile Publishing, the marketing consultant for the Tourism Commission. “We’re hoping if people were traveling on Christmas Day, they would see our billboard and start thinking about Sea Isle.” Key parts of Sea Isle’s tourism strategy for 2018 were unveiled Thursday during the commission’s board meeting, including billboards, Internet videos, a social media campaign and other types of advertising designed to lure visitors to the shore. Marketing consultant Mickey Coskey and Tourism Commission Chairman James Bennett preview a summer-themed video for Sea Isle's vacation campaign. The marketing campaign will also feature a combination of traditional tourism publications – such as travel guides, rack cards, bookmarks and local print ads – to reach long-range vacationers. Diane Merson, Sea Isle’s tourism representative, said the campaign will be rolled out in phases leading up to the traditionally bustling summer vacation season. The advertising and marketing blitz is intended to distinguish Sea Isle from other Jersey Shore towns in the fierce competition for tourism business. “Our campaign looks fantastic, as usual,” said Tourism Commission Chairman James Bennett, owner of the LaCosta Lounge nightclub and Lobster Loft restaurant in Sea Isle. Reflecting the growing use of social media in the travel industry, Sea Isle will continue to place a heavy emphasis on digital marketing for 2018. Sea Isle has launched its annual “The Forecast is Fun” Facebook campaign. Beginning Feb. 16, the Facebook page will include a “countdown to summer,” featuring daily posts on Sea Isle attractions and events. In a teaser for summer, the first of nine vacation-themed videos has already been posted on the Facebook page. It shows two paddleboarders leisurely making their way along Sea Isle’s tranquil bays. “Hopefully this video brings you warm thoughts,” viewers are told. “We promise, summer is coming soon!” https://www.facebook.com/186622454698572/videos/1968929569801176/ Coskey, in remarks to the Tourism Commission, stressed that Facebook video “is huge” in attracting visitors to Sea Isle. “You have to have Facebook video now,” she said. Well before summer’s arrival, Sea Isle will hold its hugely popular “Polar Bear Plunge” weekend Feb. 16-18, highlighted by the annual chilly dip into the ocean. The weekend will include an array of visitor-friendly events. Based on the turnout in previous years, thousands of self-proclaimed polar bears are expected to take the plunge, which is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17. Coskey and Merson noted that public interest in last year’s Polar Bear Plunge weekend sent Sea Isle’s tourism webpage traffic, or “hits,” soaring in February 2017. “You get the hits, so you know that they’re going to our page. That’s what we definitely want to reinforce as we officially start our marketing campaign,” Merson said. "Polar Bears" young and old charged into the ocean for Sea Isle's madcap dip in 2017. Coskey released figures Thursday showing that Sea Isle’s tourism website had 280,091 hits and 182,971 individual visitors in 2017, representing an increase in both categories compared to 2016. Coskey told the Tourism Commission that she hopes the website will break the 300,000 threshold for the number of hits in 2018. The web figures underscore the importance of mobile communications in reaching vacationers, Coskey said. Overall, 61 percent of the people who accessed the Sea Isle tourism website www.visitsicnj.com used their mobile devices to do so in 2017. That compared with 28 percent of the web visitors using their desktop computers and 11 percent using their tablets. “The trend continues to skew for mobile,” Coskey said. Demographic figures from 2017 showed that 40 percent of the web visitors live in New Jersey, 38 percent in Philadelphia, 7 percent in Washington, D.C., and 4 percent in New York. Women far outnumbered men in accessing the website, 63 percent to 37 percent, respectively. Those figures suggest that women are generally taking the lead role in planning summer vacations in Sea Isle. On a typical summer weekend, about 50,000 to 60,000 visitors will pour into Sea Isle, compared to the town’s year-round population of 2,100. During peak summer days, such as the Fourth of July, the number of tourists will balloon to 65,000 to 75,000, city officials say.