On Wednesday, Feb. 4, Visit Atlantic City held its Annual Meeting in Review with over 150 destination partners to celebrate the brand’s accomplishments while sharing its plans to continue tourism growth in 2026. In 2025, Visit Atlantic City experienced a successful year, hosting 205 meetings, conventions and tradeshows in market which generated 328,067 room nights, welcomed 533,242 attendees and brought $362,253,473 in economic impact. As the destination approaches one year following the integration of the DO AC brand and assets under the unified Visit Atlantic City name, these numbers reflect substantial growth for the area and underscore the success of the integrations first year.
“As a destination, we were thrilled to see the success of the unification of our leisure and meetings marketing efforts,” said Gary Musich, President and CEO of Visit Atlantic City. “The integration gave our team the opportunity to think more creatively and fueled meaningful tourism growth across the destination and region as we established efficient partnerships and collaborations. As we look ahead to 2026, we’re excited to see how new and ongoing initiatives such as the Visit Atlantic City Soar & Shore Festival and Taste Atlantic City thrive within a more focused strategy. While meetings and conventions will always remain a top priority, this leisure integration marked a pivotal moment for the destination, and we look forward to seeing leisure and meetings travel continue to grow together in the year ahead.”
“Consolidating leisure and convention marketing under Visit Atlantic City in early 2025 was transformative,” said Eric Scheffler, Executive Director for the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Visit Atlantic City. “This strengthened our ability to showcase Atlantic City as a premier meetings destination and vibrant leisure getaway. We will build on this momentum and keep positioning Atlantic City as a world-class destination.”
In 2025, Visit Atlantic City’s leisure marketing strategies drove meaningful action through the website, which resulted in 292,249 partner referrals, 3,155 e-news signups, 102,010 book direct referrals and 7,145 visitor guide requests, signaling trip-planning readiness.
At the Annual Meeting, Visit Atlantic City debuted its new marketing campaign highlighting, “Iconic in the Everyday” capitalizing on our brand personality characteristic of being an iconic destination and aligning Atlantic City with its brand pillars of nostalgia and history. Building on the momentum from 2025, the 2026 Marketing Plan will further prioritize out-of-home advertising, reinforcing the destination’s presence in high-impact, high-visibility markets. Last year, Visit Atlantic City launched a robust out-of-home (OOH) strategy that brought the destination’s messaging to key markets including Philadelphia, New York City, Washington, D.C. and Boston. The campaign also extended into some of the region’s most visible moments and locations, featuring branded newsstands, bus shelters and double-decker buses in Center City along the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl Parade route, Times Square digital billboards during New Year’s Eve and Macy’s Herald Square digital billboards during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Banner planes with routes from Sandy Hook to Ocean City, MD, LED mobile billboards on land and sea, a robust digital programmatic campaign, on-site radio broadcasts and a new broadcast commercial in our optimized DMA of Northern NJ, New York, Philadelphia and the Jersey Shore complemented our brand awareness strategy.
For Visit Atlantic City, 2025 was a pinnacle year for awards, as the destination received the acclaimed New Jersey Tourism Excellence Award (NJTIA) in Public Relations. This award came on the heels of the reimagined Visit Atlantic City Soar & Shore Festival that took place in Atlantic City this past year. Following the event’s success in 2025, it will be returning to the destination on May 28-30, 2026, as the unofficial kick off to summer. Some of the other notable awards Visit Atlantic City was honored with in 2025 include Smart Meetings 2025 Smart Stars Award – Best Beach CVB/DMO, Prevue Meetings 2025 Prevue Visionary Awards, PCMA Greater Philadelphia Chapter Partnership Award and more.
2026 also brings a focus on reconceptualizing leisure events like Atlantic City Restaurant week, which has been reimagined as Taste Atlantic City. The reinvented experience will feature more than 60 participating restaurants with tiered menus that promise a flavorful experience for locals and visitors alike. The celebration will span the entire month of March, bringing the event back to its original time of year while expanding its scope and offerings.
Additionally, Visit Atlantic City recently conducted a visitor profile study with market research firm, Future Partners to help identify ways to motivate visitors to travel to Atlantic City and uncover specific visitor demographics to ensure proper targeting for marketing messaging. This visitor profile study will allow the destination to note exactly where to expand upon regional amenities, year-round experiences and entertainment to attract visitors and increase room night bookings as well as average length of stay.
For more information about Visit Atlantic City visit, www.visitatlanticcity.com
Photo Credit: Senator Vince Polistina
