SEA ISLE CITY – “There’s an app for that” is a phase increasingly used to cover more and more of life’s activities. Beginning this year, the city will add buying and displaying a beach tag to the list.
At a City Council meeting Tuesday, Feb. 13, officials discussed the upcoming use of digital beach tags expected to go on sale in April. My Beach Mobile’s app, available through both the Apple Store and Google Play, will allow Sea Isle beachgoers to purchase and store their digital beach tag.
Since the 1970s, visitors to Cape May County have been purchasing plastic beach tags. Towns have held contests for schoolchildren to design regular and holiday tags. Some visitors have been collecting the small plastic badges for years.
While beachgoers will still have the option to stay with plastic, the city is betting that many visitors will appreciate having a digital choice.
My Beach Mobile’s website touts no more lost tags, options for temporary transfer of tags from within the app and ways for property owners and businesses to buy seasonal tags that transfer easily to tenants over the course of a summer.
The website already lists Sea Isle as a customer, along with four other Jersey Shore towns: Margate, Harvey Cedars, Ship Bottom and Long Beach Township. There will be a small fee that will make the digital tags slightly more expensive than the plastic ones, similar to the way that an additional fee is attached to parking apps.
Beach tag sales are a big revenue generator for the city. The 2023 budget shows that the city took in $1.4 million in tag revenue in 2022 and budgeted for $1.37 million in anticipated revenue in 2023.
Earlier this year, Sea Isle raised the price of its daily, weekly and seasonal tags by $5 for 2024. Seasonal tags will cost $30 after May 15. Before that date they can be had at the discounted price of $25. Daily tags will cost $10 and weekly tags will cost $15.
The Pew Research Center has found that while 97% of Americans own a mobile phone of some form, 85% use a smartphone. The same Pew study shows that smartphone usage drops as the age of the person rises. For those 65 and older, the percentage with smartphones is 76%.
Contact the author, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.