It’s not the jobs or the businesses, it’s the perception Ocean City is closed

Last Updated on Tuesday, September 18, 2012 03:29 pm Written by Cindy Nevitt Friday, July 13, 2012 01:00 am

Last week, when she was the featured speaker at a Fairness In Taxes meeting, Michele Gillian, the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said it is going to take jobs to make Ocean City a year-round community.

Earlier in the same week, at his swearing-in ceremony, newly minted 2nd Ward Councilman Antwan McClellan vowed to help Ocean City’s downtown and boardwalk merchants thrive year-round.

In the springtime, Michael Hinchman, acting outside his role as FIT president, held two public meetings to address the city’s downtown woes. He said then that Asbury Avenue will become a year-round business operation when it becomes a destination for people who live offshore.

Debbie and Britany Vespe, who opened a mother-daughter clothing boutique on Asbury Avenue six weeks ago, are already trying to figure out how they’re going to get through the winter.

“It’s quiet,” Debbie Vespe said of her impression of the off-season here, which she gleaned from wintertime visits to scout a location for her store. Prior to last winter, Vespe had only experienced the town in the summer. She said she and her daughter will have to get the word out to the mainland communities that Love on a Hanger is open after Labor Day.

The math is never going to add up. There will never be enough year-round residents (currently 11,700) to support the town the way the summertime population (150,000) does. There will never be enough jobs, never enough visitors from nearby towns, and never an effective enough marketing campaign to truly drive the town year-round.

Unless the problem of perception is addressed.

Many visitors to Ocean City think of the town the way they think of amusement parks like Six Flags or Coney Island. When the season is over, they think the lights are turned off, the music dies, and the gates are locked. And they go away and they stay away until it’s time to crank up the season again.

I’ve worked in enough places in the last 30 years and have heard enough misconceptions about this town to fill a book. The primary stumbling block to creating a year-round community is the sheer number of visitors who can’t believe people actually live here 365 days a year, and not just for a summer week or season.

It’s the same phenomenon that occurs when people go on cruises and can’t believe the crew sleeps onboard the ship. Where do they think the people waiting on them go at night?

Through the years, many visitors have asked me where I live in the winter, and when I say Ocean City, they look completely flabbergasted, as if the notion of anyone staying on the island outside the Memorial Day-to-Labor Day parameters is sheer craziness.

To become a year-round community where the town doesn't contract after the 10 weeks of summer, Ocean City needs to tackle the visitors’ perception that it is closed in the off-season. Many people pack their cars and their memories and drive out of town at the end of their stay, never giving another thought to Ocean City until it’s time to plan their next vacation.

I know, because before I lived here, that’s what I did. After Labor Day, I never gave the place another thought until it was Memorial Day. Once school let out and my cousins moved from their home in Audubon to their summer place in the 600 block of Ocean Avenue, Ocean City was officially open for the season.

Making Ocean City a place where businesses don’t have to ride the roller coaster of elation and despair is going to take more than a catchy jingle or phrase. It’s going to take some real education and some psychology. Every opportunity to hammer home the message that Ocean City is open year-round must be explored and exploited.

Ocean City need look no farther than Atlantic City for inspiration in crafting a campaign that firmly plants the idea that the town remains open for business once the ocean cools down. No one thinks Atlantic City, a seashore town much like Ocean City in its climate, shuts down after Labor Day. It’s “Always Turned On” campaign has become “DO AC” with zero mention of gambling in it. The thrust of the campaign is that there are always things to do in Atlantic City.

The first thing that needs revising here is Ocean City’s fiercely protected “America’s Greatest Family Resort” motto. The very word “resort” conveys a sense of impermanence. People automatically associate “resort” with a vacation destination of limited duration. And Ocean City’s constant emphasis on sun, sand, surf and sea reinforces the idea that this burg exists only for summertime pleasure.

The town’s motto must be changed to include a tagline that promotes the idea that Ocean City’s calendar includes months outside of June, July and August.

Progress has been made with off-season events such as First Night, but the blip of 10,000 New Year’s celebrants isn't enough to overcome the perception that the town is closed from October to April. Solve that, and Ocean City won’t need to struggle as mightily to survive in the winter.

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