Massive crowds in the Rehoboth Beach/Dewey Beach resort area have likely set a new record for visitors over the long holiday weekend.
Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Carol Everhart says each day the area hosted more than 200,000 visitors during the four days of July Fourth celebrations.
Everhart says the end of last month’s long rain spell came just in time.
“Along comes the sun and the holiday weekend and as a little boy on the beach said ‘I think everyone in America was here’ and it seemed that way. We had just a huge weekend,” said Everhart.
In Rehoboth Beach, Everhart says daytime visitors averaged spending $100 per person each day. Overnight guests, on average, shelled out twice that much individually. According to the Chamber of Commerce, occupancy at hotels and motels in the area remained above 97 percent the entire weekend.
Additionally, Everhart notes DART’s park and ride service shuttled a record numbers of visitors each day and Rehoboth Beach’s City Manager reported parking meter revenues also saw significant increases over last year.
Everhart says having so many busy days in a row leads her to believe it was a record holiday for the area.
“[Our assessment of business] over the weekend: excellent and up. What I have seen [in the past] is days that were as busy as any one of these four. We’ve seen that. What I have not seen - and I’ve been here over 20 years - is four days [together] that exceeded the prior year like that.”
Everhart says final traffic counts from DelDOT are needed to confirm the July Fourth weekend was the busiest on record.