By MADDY VITALE
Tourism officials in Sea Isle City are hoping that visitors will “reconnect” with the beach town this summer.
For the third year in a row, the marketing campaign features the slogan “Reconnect in Sea Isle!” The web commercials beckon visitors with the words, “Reconnect, Refresh, Relax: Reconnect in Sea Isle City, New Jersey.”
“The one thing so special about the shore is memories. People come to Sea Isle for generations,” Mickey Coskey, marketing consultant for the Sea Isle City Tourism Commission, said during a virtual board meeting Thursday.
The tourism commercial depicts snippets from postcards coming to life in a 30-second montage of people enjoying Sea Isle’s beaches, bays, dining attractions and more.
In all, the marketing plan includes the use of social media platforms, billboards, rack cards for locations including Pennsylvania and Connecticut, among other areas, and 15-second and 30-second commercials.
Sea Isle’s billboard at the entrance ramp for the Walt Whitman Bridge in Philadelphia is highly visible, Coskey said.
“It jumps right out at you. It is very effective,” she told the board members. “If you are in Philly, you will be real happy with how bright and vibrant the colors look.”
(Sea Isle City Tourism Video For 2021)
As pandemic worries continue to linger, the tourism commission also discussed popular summer events and what the likelihood was to host them in 2021.
The total tourism commission budget for the summer marketing plan this year is $88,880, compared to recent years when it was in the $100,000 range.
The commission is funded by rental and mercantile permits paid to the city, but the rental permits are down because more property owners are using their summer homes for themselves during the pandemic instead of renting them out to vacationers.
Despite less funding due to the pandemic, the city still has enough money to market the island and its attractions, officials said.
“Make no doubt about it, we can make a lot of hay with $88,000,” Sea Isle Public Information Officer Katherine Custer said.
During the meeting, board member Lisa Iannone asked about changing the Skimmer Festival, the city’s signature summer attraction that traditionally draws thousands of tourists to Sea Isle over a weekend in June.
Last year, due to the pandemic gathering restrictions, the event was scaled back to just a local sidewalk sale and antique auto show.
Usually, the Skimmer Festival is highlighted by 300 vendors lining the Promenade amid shoulder-to-shoulder crowds in a flea market-style setting. However, crowd restrictions and the need for social distancing during the pandemic forced the city to cancel that part of the festival last year.
“A lot of people asked this past weekend if there is going to be Skimmer Weekend,” Iannone said. “We all had a great weekend without the flea market last year.”
Custer explained that as of right now, there is no official decision about the Skimmer Festival. She added that she could not imagine Gov. Phil Murphy allowing large crowd gatherings at this point in the pandemic.
“The mayor indicated that it is not likely we are going to have the Skimmer Weekend,” Custer said. “And if not, we would be happy to have a sidewalk sale again. There were people up and down the avenue.”
While it was busy last year with the sidewalk sale, over the years it has been the flea market and the vendors that have really made the festival a major attraction.
“I value everybody’s opinion, so we can bring it to the mayor,” Custer said, adding that the event would not likely match pre-pandemic levels at this point anyway. “The challenge will be, people love it. Literally, we get tens of thousands of people up there.”
James Bennett, tourism commission chairman, said to Iannone and the rest of the commission, “But with a lack of vendors, you wouldn’t have as many people. I have to speak to more retailers about that issue.”
He continued, “I can see Lisa’s (Iannone) point, but I would have to poll other business owners.”
Among other changes for the summer of 2021, the city will not be printing the visitor brochures that are jam-packed year after year with events and activities to do in Sea Isle during the summer season.
Custer explained that with the fluid nature of the pandemic, dictating what events can and can’t be held, the safer and smarter option was to use the city’s website seaislecitynj.us and Facebook page as a listing for the events.
In the meantime, the city continues to look forward to the summer of 2021.
Sea Isle is bringing back movie nights at Excursion Park, but switching them to Wednesdays instead of Friday nights to attract more people. There can be up to 500 people because the movies are outside in a large venue.
Monday nights will be Family Fun Nights, providing all types of activities — from magicians, to arts and crafts, to a costume contest.
Whether the city will host concerts at Excursion Park this summer has yet to be decided.
“Movies have a 500-person limit. Concerts traditionally have much larger crowds of 1,000 to 2,000 people on a Saturday night,” Custer said. “It all comes down to the governor’s restrictions. It is still to be determined.”
