A barrier blocks access to a walkway leading to Sea Isle City's now-closed Promenade during the coronavirus pandemic.
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Sea Isle City has halted key parts of its $100,000 tourism campaign amid uncertainty about the summer vacation season caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
For the last two years, “Reconnect in Sea Isle!” has been the family-friendly tourism slogan of the beach town.
A web commercial beckons visitors with the words, “Reconnect, Refresh, Relax: Reconnect in Sea Isle City, New Jersey.”
However, with the beaches still closed and a series of summer tourism events canceled, postponed or still up in the air due to the coronavirus crisis, a decision has been made to stop some aspects of the tourism campaign.
“As soon as this happened, we canceled our marketing plan, for the most part,” Mickey Coskey, marketing consultant for the Sea Isle City Tourism Commission, said during a board meeting Thursday.
Most significantly, the city will not be printing its annual visitors guide, a compendium of local attractions, special events and other information helpful to vacationers.
Before the pandemic hit, there were plans to print 40,000 copies of the visitors guide. Of those, 6,500 copies were supposed to be mailed directly to local property owners.
When the coronavirus caused the cancellation or postponement of so many events, it would have been impossible to include the city’s entertainment calendar in the visitors guide, tourism officials explained.
“We had no idea what was going to happen to the calendar,” Coskey said.
Coskey told members of the Tourism Commission at their board meeting that a decision was made then to stop the visitors guide from going to print.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9DQEWfPz7U
Sea Isle also had been in the process of rolling out other parts of the summer marketing campaign when the pandemic struck. They included tourism billboards in the Philadelphia area, web commercials, a social media campaign and other forms of advertising.
The billboards and web commercials have been put on hold for the time being, Coskey noted. The plan is to bring them back when the coronavirus shutdown is lifted and the Jersey Shore reopens to visitors.
“As soon as it makes sense to resume, we will,” Coskey said.
Sea Isle has also pulled its popular “Countdown to Summer” campaign on its Facebook page for now. “Countdown to Summer” features daily posts on Sea Isle’s attractions and events and also invites the public to send in vacation photos or videos.
In the meantime, the city plans to continue updating the public about its special events, entertainment and other highlights of the upcoming summer season through its visitsicnj.com website and Facebook page. Website traffic has jumped during the pandemic, tourism officials said.
“Obviously, they’re looking for information. They’re looking at the website,” said Chris Oney, Sea Isle’s tourism assistant.
Mayor Leonard Desiderio released a statement Thursday stating that the city hopes to reopen the beaches and Promenade beginning next week. Even if the beaches and Promenade do reopen then, social distancing guidelines will still be in place to protect the public from COVID-19, he added.
“When the beaches are initially opened, it will be for limited use only – walking, running, surfing, and fishing. Sunbathing, sitting and group gatherings will be prohibited,” Desiderio said.
Also, the city is planning to allow long-term rentals of 30 days or more to begin on May 11 and short-term rentals to start on May 30 to help jump-start the summer season, Desiderio announced.
Sea Isle hopes to have crowded beaches again, like here in 2019, when the summer season gets underway this year.
