If you live in the New York city and Upper New Jersey area, it’s nearly a certainty that you’ve been to the Jersey Shore in Seaside Heights, NJ.
It’s one of the greatest places to go for a henna tattoo, to sit out in a beach chair, or just walk the boardwalk while looking at people. Because of its fame, and the family-friendly environment, the shore saw a 24% increase in people last year over 2020.
While certainly this can be attributed to the pandemic, the $20 billion added to the city’s budget because of the surge of tourism was unexpected. Now city managers are under extreme pressure to top that number this year.
Yet costs of raw materials, labor, gas, and taxes are up, thanks to the massive increase in inflation. With the dollar not going so far, it’s harder for these seaside places to hire staff.
“We’re always welcome for people to come in and apply for a job,” a t-shirt shop employee named Xavier told FOX Business. “Nobody’s wanting to come out here and get some work.”
Lee Abbamonte is a travel blogger and analyst. He appeared on the same show to explain what people need to expect this summer.
“Whether it’s gas, hotels, airfare, food, inflation is crazy right now and people are paying it,” he said. “Hotels can get away with it. Restaurants can get away with it. Airlines get away with it. Because the demand is there.”
He’s right. The demand is there because some states are still just getting out of needing masks and social distancing. In Florida, the second “free” summer is beginning to ramp up.
‘Free Florida’
A cold winter full of death, misery, and overcrowded hospitals that the left was claiming would come never showed up. Florida’s beaches have been jam-packed since the start of spring break and never seemed to regress.
It’s not just the college kids flocking to the beaches either. Families with kids are going nuts for the idea of having their toes in the sand, no mask on their face, and the sea breeze flooding into their nostrils.
It’s a beautiful feeling, and the local businesses depend on their dollars to stay alive. The 2020 pandemic nearly wiped out entire towns of their small businesses and tourism dollars. Without that injection of income, everyone suffers.
The idea of “staycations” is also incredibly popular this year. Faced with gas still climbing and hitting record prices daily, many are electing to stay closer to home.
Nevertheless, some are more than willing to pay those higher prices. The demand is strong and if the people are willing to pay higher prices, then service providers are going to charge as much as possible to make up for previous losses.
