Cape May County nearly made a full recovery in Tourism in 2021 and look poised to surpass record 2019 levels in 2022. This was the news from the Cape May County Tourism Conference, which was hosted by the Cape May County Tourism on Wednesday at the Cape May County Administration Building. Cape May County Commissioner Gerald M. Thornton and Tourism Director Diane Wieland presented the County data from last year and a preview of the upcoming summer season. The Legislative District 1 Team of Senator Michael Testa, Assemblyman Antwan McClellan, and Assemblyman Erik Simonsen also presented an update from Trenton.
Wieland called Cape May County the “Comeback Kid,” returning last year to 96% of the tourism revenue gained in the record 2019 tourism season. Cape May County produced $6.6 billion in tourism expenditures, which is down from the $6.9 billion in 2019. Cape May County is on track to exceed its 2019 levels this year if current trajectory continues. This is ahead of Statewide recovery, which isn’t expected for another couple of years.
“Cape May County government has been working diligently on finding ways to get our economy back on track as quickly as possible,” said Thornton. “I put together the County’s Recovery Task Force immediately as we were coming out of the lockdowns during the pandemic, which were led by Commissioner Vice-Director Leonard Desiderio and Commissioner Will Morey. They did a tremendous job of getting a plan together for reopening and creating our ‘Safely Together’ messaging. We continued to evolve the message and pour additional resources into marketing to get Cape May County to where it is today.”
Another positive trend is direct tourism employment bounced back in 2021. The latest data from New Jersey shows that direct employment was up to 28,304 last year, which is over the record year of 2019 at 26,981 and significantly higher than the 23,265 in 2020. Businesses were boosted by 10 straight months of an increase to the Occupancy Tax collection over 2019, which was the last year recorded before the pandemic. This is the main metric used to determine overnight stays. Cape May County only saw two decreasing months versus 2019 in January and February and then increased every month after. According to the New Jersey Treasury data, Occupancy Tax collection in the County was up 24.5% last year over 2019.
This year is very important for Cape May County because it is the first year since the beginning of COVID-19 that the Canadian border is reopened. Wieland spoke about the “Reconnect Canada,” campaign, to encourage visitors, primarily from the Quebec province of Canada, to visit the Jersey Cape once again. The program began with advertising that began at the beginning of the year. During the summer months, visitors from Canada in the past have represented 7 to 9% of all visitors to the County. Wieland just returned from a trip to Quebec City with State Tourism Director Jeffrey Vasser, which involved outreach talking to government leaders,
Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) management, local media, travel writers, and influencers.
“The response we have been getting from our Canadian friends has been very positive so far,” said Wieland. “Our accommodations in the County are reporting strong numbers of booking from Canada. We also got to talk one-on-one with plenty of people while we visited Quebec and the message is strong, they want to travel again. We will continue to assess the best ways to connect with this market as the connection between Quebec and Cape May County is one, we want to continue long into the future.”
