{"id":233155,"date":"2025-10-18T05:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T05:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/233155\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T05:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T05:17:10","slug":"good-summer-for-atlantic-city-casinos-stockton-panel-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/233155\/","title":{"rendered":"Good summer for Atlantic City casinos, Stockton panel says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The past summer was a positive one for South Jersey businesses, especially Atlantic City casinos, according to a group of panelists at the sixth annual Jersey Shoreview at Stockton University.<\/p>\n

But some economic uncertainty clouds the future.<\/p>\n

The Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism (LIGHT) at Stockton\u2019s School of Business hosted the panel last week at the John F. Scarpa Academic Center. It also was streamed online.<\/p>\n

Total gross gaming revenue hit $1.73 billion, a 15.4% increase year-over-year. Brick-and-mortar gross gaming revenue \u2014 or the amount of money spent physically at casinos \u2014 hit $855 million, a 5.5% increase year-over-year.<\/p>\n

The total number of vehicles to pass through the Atlantic City Expressway\u2019s Pleasantville Toll Plaza hit 5.53 million, a 0.6% increase over 2024, but the average total casino employment for the summer was 23,353, down 2.9% from 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unclear if that\u2019s because of economic efficiency or because of the difficulty in finding employees for the industry,\u201d LIGHT Faculty Director Jane Bokunewicz said.<\/p>\n

It also was a great summer for meetings and conventions with 15 shows, a 150% increase over 2024, and $17.7 million in delegate spending, a 41% increase, she said.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s panelists included:<\/p>\n

Oliver Cooke, associate professor of Economics at Stockton University and editor of the South Jersey Economic ReviewMary Moliver, executive director of Destination Services at Visit Atlantic CityBen Rose, director of Market and Media Relations for the Greater Wildwood Tourism AuthorityFeras Shawi, the owner of Brewberry Caf\u00e9 in Atlantic City<\/p>\n

The panel was moderated by Press of Atlantic City Digital Editor Nicholas Huba.<\/p>\n

Here are select responses from the panel to prepared questions:<\/p>\n

How did the summer go for each of you, and what are your overall thoughts on it?<\/p>\n

Ben Rose: We\u2019re kind of waiting for state numbers right now. We don\u2019t have July and August tax numbers yet. June was a very wet month. But July and August look like they were very strong months and our second season in September looked very strong. So, we are looking at a fairly good summer, not a great summer because of weather and we are looking to meet or exceed last year\u2019s record-breaking numbers.<\/p>\n

Mary Moliver: This summer did take a rebound from a disappointing June. From a meeting standpoint, the convention center was full, and year over year our numbers were up, so we are very happy with that.<\/p>\n

Feras Shawi: It was a good summer. I saw more foot traffic. I saw families and kids coming in.<\/p>\n

Rose: People are spending less money now, and I think the economy has gotten them to really cut back on their vacations. We\u2019ve seen a trend for bookings closer to the time of departure. I think the average booking window right now is 16 days, and that\u2019s very unusual. The average length of stay is 2.7 days in Wildwood right now and that\u2019s a major change from before.<\/p>\n

Oliver Cooke: We definitely saw a job market nationally that was a lot softer than I think a lot of people thought. I think people are naturally starting to pull back. We discussed last spring uncertainty weighing on the economy. Tariffs are involved. I think there are a lot of other things that are involved that make it just more difficult for people to know three or six months out what their own lives are going to look like, what their own businesses are going to look like.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/a> \u00a0Jane Bokunewicz, faculty director of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton University. (Photo courtesy of Stockton University)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

How has the economy impacted your businesses? Are you noticing people spending less?<\/p>\n

Shawi: Yes, I have noticed a lot of changes in spending. People are spending less. After the tariffs, we have had to raise our prices. For me, as a business owner, to get more customers, I\u2019ve had to run more promotions and offers for the customers to be able to afford. People used to come buy two or three items. This summer, they only bought one item because of the prices. Most of our products are imported from either Europe or Mexico.<\/p>\n

One of the things that returned this year was an air show to Atlantic City and also the introduction of one to Wildwood. How important are air shows to shore communities?<\/p>\n

Moliver: In our opinion it was highly successful. This was a different type of air show. It was more of a civilian air show. It drove over 150,000 people on a Tuesday and Wednesday putting $19 million into the economy of the city. We do have dates on hold for 2026 and 2027. In 2026, we are moving it from July to May.<\/p>\n

Rose: It ties into our main goal of extending the season. We decided to have it in September on a weekend that really didn\u2019t have a major event. And it did very, very well. It drew close to 150,000 people over two days, but more importantly it had an economic impact of over $36 million in business to the communities. We have over 8,000 hotel rooms and most of them were sold out for the two days.<\/p>\n

There was a lot of talk at the start of the year regarding President Trump\u2019s policies on immigration. We know that Canadian visitors are a huge part of Cape May County\u2019s tourism. How impactful were those policies on the Canadian population?<\/p>\n

Rose:\u00a0It actually came out to be about a 60% decrease in the number of Canadian visitors. What we did is we increased our marketing to the Latino family market. That was a major marketing push for us.<\/p>\n

What is the biggest issue as we move forward to next summer season of 2026?<\/p>\n

Cooke: Looking out the next six to nine months, I think the direction of the economy is going to be huge. I think inflationary pressures are slowly building. I think that\u2019s a big wild card. To what extent does inflation really start to bite? Unemployment is definitely starting to slowly trend up. The actual unemployment rate here in the region is already a couple of points north of what the state\u2019s is. The state is hovering around 5 and we\u2019re closer to 7 here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The past summer was a positive one for South Jersey businesses, especially Atlantic City casinos, according to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-233155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}