By Kathleen Cassedy

In the new musical, Ragtime, which celebrates life during the turn of the century, Atlantic City's fashionable boardwalk features prominently among the sets. Few other landmarks are identified so closely with this New Jersey resort's early heyday, as it emerged as a popular holiday destination. Whereas, leisure travelers once flocked to Atlantic City to take in the salt air they believed held healing properties, ever since 1978, legalized gambling has been the number one draw.

The four-mile wooden promenade is still very much a part of this beachtown, but its flashy casinos, shimmering in the sun and glowing in the dark, have become signature icons and the community's economic mainstay. Tax revenues collected from these powerhouses, and administered by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, have helped fuel the city's $7 billion ongoing revitalization. Both infrastructure and beautification projects have upgraded the overall destination product, encompassing just 44 blocks, and enhanced accessibility from all transportation modes. Now as the new millennium approaches, Atlantic City is positioning itself for its next renaissance.

"A number of key leaders, several years ago, recognized that in order for Atlantic City to continue to prosper, they needed to reinvest dollars into the community to improve the infrastructure....There was fear that casino gaming would be spreading across America, and that Atlantic City could best attract a larger market if it did more to diversify its visitor mix," explains Marshall Murdaugh, executive director of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority (AC-CVA), which was formed four years ago by combining the marketing efforts of the convention and visitors bureau and the convention center.

MAJOR CASINO DEVELOPMENT

Casino gaming has not proliferated to the extent predicted in other jurisdictions. As a result of that, Atlantic City government's incentives and pent-up demand, major casino-hotel development and expansion is underway or planned, especially in the area called the Marina, by both established companies and major new-comers: MGM Grand Inc., Mirage, Circus Enterprises, Boyd Gaming Group, and Sun International.

Many of the city's own revitalization projects - initiated up to a decade ago - are now reaching fruition. An $88 million Grand Boulevard was recently completed, which features the new Atlantic Park and Plaza with cascading fountains, a 90-foot lighthouse, from which laser lights beacon evening visitors; a 180-foot-long simulated boardwalk; a stone jetty; and amphitheater seating. Other beautification works include a series of colorful banners heralding resort information, and more landscaping, decorative street lights, brick and wider sidewalks, and park benches.

A Visitors Welcome Center was recently built on the Atlantic City Expressway, and gazebo-style information booths have been placed intermittently on the boardwalk. Among visitor attractions, an 1857 lighthouse is receiving a $3 million restoration, and a $3 million Marine Life Education Center is underway at the city's Basin Maritime Park.

More than $478 million is being pumped into infrastructure. The city opened its new $7.3 million bus terminal in 1997, and recently provided its underutilized airport with a $17.7 million expansion, which increased capacity to 1.3 million passengers.

NEW CONVENTION CENTER

A new $268 million state-of-the-art convention center opened in 1997, and has already booked more than 290 conventions, trade and public shows through the year 2007. It replaces the Boardwalk Convention Hall, which itself will undergo a $50 million redevelopment. The hall will be used as a special events arena for concerts, other entertainment, and will remain the venue for the annual Miss America Pageant.

Atlantic City officials expect its new attractions and convention center will help diversify market mix and reach. Already 37 million annual visitors throng to this beachtown which has a population of only 38,000. This is very good, except that all but seven million tourists are day trippers. The city's current 13 casino hotels, accounting for 12,000 guest rooms, are showing annual occupancies in the 90s, which is extremely good, except that it does not allow growth in overnight stays. When travelers stay longer, they spend more money and visit other attractions.

"There's more overnight demand, we just don't have the (room) supply to satisfy it," remarks Sara Lindkrantz, AC-CVA vice president of tourism.

About two thirds of Atlantic City's arrivals come by car; the other third come by motorcoach. The largest market is regional, from the tri-state area - New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Only about 2 percent of Atlantic City's tourists arrive by air, even though the Atlantic City International Airport is poised for takeoff. With the longest runways in the state, it can accommodate the Concorde, and sometimes does when that supersonic jet arrives as a charter flight. The airport is currently served by two regional carriers: US Air Express and Spirit Airlines; and charters from Canada and occasionally overseas.

MORE GUEST ROOMS NEEDED

"Airlines can't bring people in if there's no place for them to stay," Lindkrantz notes. Just last year, Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino, the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort, and Harrah's Casino Hotel Atlantic City added 1,336 rooms to the city's inventory, and the city's first non-casino hotel in 10 years, the Sheraton Atlantic City Convention Center Hotel, opened with 500 rooms (and room to build 500 more). Two years earlier, in 1996, more than 1,000 rooms were added at casino hotels. By the time new casino resort development is completed, around 2003, the city's room inventory will have expanded to about 33,000 rooms.

"We have already absorbed the new inventory of rooms. It's going to be the next wave of rooms that is going to make the real difference. They will be the critical mass we need in order to achieve expanded air service," Lindkrantz says. Until then, AC-CVA is concentrating its marketing efforts on a 300-mile radius, often partnering with casinos through cooperative advertising, and familiarization trips. Advertising is concentrated in regional consumer publications, and convention and travel trade publications. About 500,000 visitor guides are sent to prospective travelers who query the AC-CVA. Television campaigns are in the long-term plans.

Given the demand for rooms, it is not surprising that this past January, Mirage Resorts, headed by Steve Wynn, announced it was increasing the scope of its 150-acre project in the marina district to double the planned number of guest rooms to 4,000. The project, Le Jardin Hotel & Casino, is aimed at an upscale market. Mirage has commissioned renowned architects Frank Gehry and Philip Johnson to design the casino-retail-resort, planned for a 2001 opening.

Among other major projects slated are: Caesars' and Gordon Group Holdings' $250 million, "highly themed" entertainment, retail and gaming resort ; MGM Grand's $700 million, 2,500-room casino resort; and Resorts Casino Hotel 's $150 million renovation and retheming.

NON-GAMING REVENUES

The casino industry, recognizing the enormous marketing opportunities that exist, given the large volume of visitors, are offering diversified experiences, such as new restaurants and other attractions. For example, a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum; and the Hard Rock Cafe, the All-Star Cafe, Rain Forest, and Planet Hollywood themed restaurants have opened in past few years within existing casinos along the boardwalk. The planned Le Jardin resort includes an upscale retail component within its design.

"As we become more of an expanded visitor destination, hopefully, you'll see more expenditures made across the board for other goods and services, and an increased length of stay," says Murdaugh. "We (AC-CVA) will be in the process of creating new demand. The supply is not going to dictate that there will be demand."

Atlantic City's Boardwalk Convention Hall, built in the 1920s, was once a major venue for the meetings market, but over the years as conventions grew larger in attendance, with bigger trade shows, Atlantic City lost that share of the market.

Now with its new convention center, the city has re-entered the national meetings marketplace, offering a total exhibit area of 502,000 square feet - equal to the length of six footballs fields by two football fields - arranged as five contiguous halls that can be used individually or combined, and prefunction space. The center's 109,100 square feet of meeting space can be broken into 45 meeting rooms, ranging from 700 to 12,900 square feet. The center is within walking distance from both the train and bus terminals, and the beach. A pedestrian airbridge links the facility to the adjoining $87 million Sheraton Atlantic City Convention Center Hotel.

ATLANTIC CITY VISITOR PROFILE

As Atlantic City's multi-billion-dollar renaissance transforms the city into a major visitor destination, the AC-CVA is concentrating its efforts for the future generation of growth. "We're looking at new markets, and we are going to try to expand our market reach beyond the tri-state region," says Lindkrantz. To learn more about its customers, AC-CVA commissioned a $100,000 research project this year from Plog Inc., which will survey 3,000 visitors and formulate a comprehensive profile and analysis of Atlantic City visitors.

Asked if Atlantic City would like to be more like Las Vegas, Lindkrantz is emphatic: "Atlantic City has no intention of remaking itself into a family destination. We're diverse. We have families. We have retirees. We have singles. This is the way we like it. We don't want to define ourselves in any one market that excludes the others."