Strong summer season for Delmarva beach towns

DELMARVA- With the unofficial end of summer, labor day weekend, in the rearview mirror Rehoboth Beach and Ocean City both report strong summer seasons for businesses across multiple sectors in the community.

“We had a solid season, it was not like 2021 which was a banner year with amazing numbers considering no one was taking cruises or flying, we came out with this summer still looking very strong,” said Ocean City Hotel Motel Restaurant Association Director Susan Jones.

Jones tells 47abc despite that dip from 2021, businesses are in good spirits, and staffing; as the town doubled its number of j1 migrant visa workers compared to last year.

She tells us prior to the pandemic the town employed nearly 4,000 J1 workers. In 2020 the number fell to just 100 and rebounded to around 1,000 in 2021.

“This year the number hit around 3,067 active workers in the area so that number is not too far from our usual 4,000 worker number and businesses have changed the way they have done businesses,” Jones said.

Up the coast in Rehoboth Beach staffing shortages were still a major challenge, along with supply chain shortages for businesses.
However, the town overcame those odds, and beat its previous travel figure from 2019, with a record total of visitors.

“If you look at hotel rooms from January 1st to August 2019 to that same period this year, you went from Saturdays at 90,499 rooms being filled to 99,138 rooms filled and those same increase events happened on Wednesday nights,” said Rehoboth Fenwick Chamber of Commerce President Carol Everhart.

She says that record also happened despite multiple weekends of tough weather that they were worried might deter travel.

“We did not see it slow down they were coming out with very strong visitation,” she said.

For both towns, the focus now shifts to the fall season, where they say increased events and longer warm temperatures have pushed September and October to be better months for the towns compared to May and June.

“Businesses are looking to pivot to longer hours and increasing their time table include those months,” Everhart said, adding “The ocean is warm it holds that weather near the water warm so we have strong visitation heading into the fall and so many events.”