ATLANTIC CITY — For decades, the resort’s casinos have identified as being part of either the Boardwalk or the newer, hipper Marina District.
But over the past couple of years, casinos in the city’s South Inlet section have been trying to carve out their own identity as North Beach Atlantic City.
The group includes Ocean Casino Resort, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City and Resorts Casino Hotel as well as non-gaming entities Showboat Atlantic City, Steel Pier and various restaurants and bars along Tennessee Avenue.
The group started as a way to market the area’s entertainment options as it rebounded from the closure of Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in October 2016 and Revel Casino Hotel in September 2014.
The joint marketing of the area, which North Beach’s website touts as the “city’s cultural epicenter,” has paid off for both gaming and non-gaming entities in the area, said Hard Rock President Joe Lupo.
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“We are pleased that the north end of the Atlantic City Boardwalk “North Beach” continues to lead the market, with Hard Rock Atlantic City, Ocean Casino Resort and Resorts showing the majority of the increase in comparison to 2019,” Lupo said. “This positive growth shows the importance of investing in the city and that working collaboratively together can have a positive impact in our community.”
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“The diversity of attractions in the ‘North Beach’ district provides a unique marketing opportunity for each of the stakeholders in the district — gaming and non-gaming alike,” said Jane F. Bokunewicz, director of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton University. “Districts create a hub of economic activity within a larger geographic area and, when stakeholders collaborate, can create a distinctive identity and sense of ‘place’ marketable to visitors. Since casino patrons tend to visit more than one property in a given trip, the success of one casino in a cluster can positively impact the others.”
All three casinos in the district saw increases in their third quarter gross operating profits.
Atlantic City now has three unofficial casino districts, said Tony Marino, who was an Atlantic City Expressway executive for 25 years before retiring in 2003 and now produces a newsletter that discusses tourism and casino trends.
The Marina District includes Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City and Golden Nugget Atlantic City.
The Boardwalk Midtown District has Bally’s Atlantic City, Caesars Atlantic City and Tropicana Atlantic City.
And then there’s the North Beach District.
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“While all three districts have three full-service casinos with some of the best restaurants in the country, top-notch entertainment, spas, fine hotels and other amenities, the North Beach District also offers to visitors the entrepreneurial dynamics of the Orange Loop’s bars, restaurants and entertainment venues, the traditional family rides and now outdoor wedding services of historic Steel Pier, and the Showboat’s innovative huge Lucky Snake Arcade and the future promise of a major indoor water park,” Marino said. “If marketed as a unified tourist destination, the North Beach District can become the leading image for the ‘New Atlantic City’ we all want to see.”
The other districts don’t have their own specific collaborative like North Beach does.
The benefits of the group are not just being felt by the casinos, said Mark Callazzo, co-founder and CEO of Alpha Funding Solutions and operator of the Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall and Rhythm & Spirits.
“North Beach Atlantic City has been a great partnership of casinos, the Steel Pier, the Absecon Lighthouse and our restaurant group on Tennessee Avenue,” Callazzo said. “It’s been great to work with our neighbors on events and cooperative marketing, and we could not ask for better partners. There is so much to do in the North Beach area, and our partnership has been a great way to showcase all the North Beach fun.”
The consortium started in 2019, when the properties were looking for a way to market the rebounding area. During that time, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority funded events on the Boardwalk in the midtown district businesses, such as concerts at Kennedy Plaza, the Atlantic City Airshow and beach concerts, Lupo said.
“In addition to there being no permanent outdoor entertainment venues in that area of the Boardwalk as there are at Kennedy Plaza, Brighton Park and Gardner’s Basin, there have not been any formal requests to CRDA for entertainment grant funding in that area,” according to a statement from the state agency.
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In addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars of improvements that have been made to casino properties in North Beach, the area has seen a beach replenishment project and a redeveloped Boardwalk.
Kelly Burke, senior vice president and chief of marketing at Ocean, said the goal of the group is to make the area a destination.
The group meets on a regular basis to talk about how to better market the area.
“We look to work together,” Lupo said. “We are seeing the benefits of working together. The alliance has been very successful. When the casinos do better, everyone does better. It’s a trickle down to the local businesses.”
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