WHERE IS THE LEADERSHIP REGARDING THE DECLINE OF OVERNIGHT VISITORS

WE NEED A COHESIVE APPROACH TO TOURISM, MARKETING AND IMAGE IN ORDER TO AVOID THE ASBURY SCENARIO.

Asbury Scenario
At the height of its popularity, visitors would see large crowds of people on the boardwalk, whose businesses appeared to be flourishing when in reality the amount of monies being spent by individual visitors was declining.
As revenues declined the boardwalk businesses responded by blanket marketing the tri-state area to increase the numbers of visitors to the boardwalk. All along the character and nature of the customers coming to the overall town was changing. More day trippers arrived from less desirable demographic areas who spent little or no money anywhere else in the community other than the boardwalk, however taxing both residential and municipal resources.

The lodging community, seasonal rentals, and downtown business began to decay. Slowly lodging unit owners who could no longer attract overnight customers due in part to high pricing required in a highly seasonal area and lowered desirability brought about by throngs of day trippers, turned to alternate forms of occupancies. These alternate forms of occupancies were in the form of government subsidized housing, government emergency assistance for families and the transient population of poor who move from low cost seasonal temporary housing from region to region. The influx of new residents whose children now began attending local schools brought with it a tax drain through added tuition costs and the added burden of programs necessary to support children from families in crisis. Residents began loosing confidence in their own neighborhoods and in local government who sat back and did nothing as the community illness spread.

The rest is history, the recovery is slow!