What will Summer 2024 bring for the Jersey Shore as Memorial Day Weekend arrives?
“What we booked in ’23 was the best we’ve ever done […] We do see the volume coming in, growing, and we see the interest in Atlantic City growing,” Visit AC Vice President Gary Musich shared at a recent Stockton University event.
But forecasts differ in light of crushing inflation and ongoing imbalances in the employment market (I don’t think NJ.com telling residents to skip the Jersey Shore in favor of Delaware will have much of an impact). It’s been predicted that Summer 2024 will be the most expensive travel summer on record with the average cost up 7% over Summer 2023 and 36% from 2021, the second “pandemic” season. Almost 50% reported in a recent survey that they’re skipping a summer trip this year, and two-thirds of those cited the expense as the culprit.
Summer will be more expensive generally even if you’re not hitting the road or headed to an airport:
- Cookout costs are up 10%.
- Burgers are up 14%.
- Ground beef? 22% more expensive.
- Condiments? 25%.
- Beer? 15%.
- Pre-prepared salads? Because who wants to be bothered with dicing veggies? 16%.
- Ice cream? 19%.
- Gas? 55%.
- Hotels? 50%.
- Airplane tickets? 38%.
You won’t find any relief if the weather sucks, either… movie tickets are up 19%.
The real danger is that working class day trippers will skip that annual day trip to the beach or boardwalk amusements and, having done so, seriously impact New Jersey’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry. That long weekend getaway just isn’t in the budget for Americans grappling with dramatic price spikes across almost every sector of daily life, and credit card balances are ballooning as a result.
Joe Biden continues to insist everything is fine! And considering his advanced state of medical decline, he might actually believe it. Americans know better because they’re living it.
There’s a very good reason why Donald Trump devoted significant energy to inflation during his recent 80,000-strong beach rally in Wildwood:
