Changing Vacation Habits

With all the negativity associated with the economy the last thing the Jersey Shore needed was a poor Memorial Day weekend and fortunately that was not the case. With a picture perfect weekend for the start of the summer season area businesses received a badly-needed jumpstart and one can only hope this is a sign of things to come. In many cases Memorial Day weekend is the biggest of the year as out-of-towners flock to beach towns, boardwalks and amusement areas and even the high price of gasoline did not keep them away. Lured by sunshine and their first chance to work on summer tans huge crowds packed the shore and put smiles on the faces of business owners. However what’s in store for the rest of the summer remains a question mark and even optimistic owners admit there’s a great deal of uncertainty over the future as the economy sputters and gas prices soar.

Survey results recently released indicate that not as many New Jerseyans consider their state a great place to vacation as in the past and the cost of visiting shore towns is a big reason why. More and more people are replacing the extended summer stay at the beach with day or weekend trips and it’s something that’s become obvious the last few years. Even with perfect weather beaches are often empty during the early part of the week and it’s made the 15 weekends from Memorial Day and Labor Day crunch time when it comes to income. Lose too many of those due to bad weather and the result is a bad summer….plain and simple.

For decades many of the summer visitors who chose the shore as their vacation destination were middle-income families who worked all year to be able to rent a bungalow for a couple of weeks in July or August. Those bungalows are gone, often replaced by apartments and condominiums that are simply too expensive to rent for a week or two and it’s changed the entire make-up of the summer visitor who made many of our beach towns as popular as they were in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s and 80’s. The real question is what does the future hold in store and even a crystal ball couldn’t answer that one.