Interview: Michele Gillian, Executive

Michele Gillian

Executive Director Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce

What differentiates Ocean City from other areas in South Jersey?

Ocean City is known as America’s greatest family resort, and we have been for over a hundred years. We truly are a clean, safe community with family-oriented entertainment. We are a dry community as well, which feeds into the family environment. Anyone from 6 months to 100 and then some could have fun in Ocean City.

What improvements to the local economy are you seeing?

The economic activity is exceeding 2019. I think we had an opportunity and we’ve taken advantage of that opportunity with our marketing campaign. Digital marketing, TV and other avenues have helped keep Ocean City at the forefront, with an opportunity to present Ocean City as a place where you can enjoy a lot of outdoor activities. We embraced this outdoor opportunity this year and we’re seeing so many new visitors that we’ve never had before. They’re not just from the Philadelphia area and the New York area. We’ve seen an increase in business, our restaurants are booming as we pivoted to outdoor dining last year and continued that this year. We’ve seen retail doing extremely well too.

What business segments are the main drivers of economic activity?

Our attractions were challenged in the past year by the limitations set by the governor. The limitations affected different events, such as weddings and family reunions. This year, it’s very difficult to even get a wedding date for next year so we’re certainly booked for weddings, and in our accommodations and rentals. Home sales have exceeded all expectations. The process of cashbased bidding wars for multimillion-dollar homes is unbelievable. We’re also seeing activity in tourism with our unique Downtown, that has six, full blocks of shopping. We have a shopping attraction district on the boardwalk. People like that sense of a town.

Ninety percent of the population in New Jersey lives in urban areas.

( ) for arts and entertainment. Although the leisure and hospitality sectors now account for much less of New Jersey’s overall GDP compared to 2009, they are still pillars of many South Jersey counties, like Cape May, and cities, like Atlantic City.

“As much as people are anxious to get back to some sense of normal, it’s going to be a slow restart,” said Kristi Howell, president and CEO of the Burlington County Regional Chamber of Commerce. “The restaurant industry will start to rebound because people want to get out. In general, everyone getting back to normal, what that looks like and what normal spend looks like are going to take a while. Our hotels, which are typically at 80-90% occupancy during the week with business travel, are going to see 18 months to two years pass before they witness a fully recovered business travel segment. Now that we have become so used to virtual platforms, there is a legitimate question over whether we are ever going to recover pre-pandemic business travel levels.”

Economic performance The pandemic came on the heels of South Jersey’s best year of growth in almost four decades, hitting tourism and hospitality-related businesses particularly hard. The sector accounts for 15% of the region’s economy and