the heat is an extra reason for residents to head to the shore this holiday weekend both AAA and the Port Authority expect record travel on the roads on the rails and in the air economists expect the weekend to provide a big boost for businesses up in down the state not just the shore Ted Goldberg spoke to tourism officials about the success of this summer season and what to expect if you're heading out this weekend while summer technically goes for another 3 weeks most of us consider this weekend the last of the summer season travel and economic experts expect it to be a busy one in New Jersey I think some of the people that may have put off going to the shore uh much of the summer for financial reasons are realizing this is the last chance we have seen increases across the board so people that are staying locally understandably because of the start of the school year you know they're just looking to get the last long weekend so we are are seeing drivet trips increase triaa is estimating a 9% increase in travel bookings from last year's record setting Year Tracy Noble says more people want to get out and drive or fly in some cases what we're seeing is that people want experiences so they are not putting as much stock as they did in necessarily material items but they want to go and have these experiences which is why we're seeing in increases in not only domestic bookings but in international bookings the total numbers aren't in yet for Shore communities but Ben Rose says it was a pretty good summer for the Wildwoods which got a big Boost from big events like the Trump rally in May I think a lot of new people got introduced to the Wildwoods that have never been here before more importantly the Barefoot Country Music Fest uh actually sold out this year and there were about 40,000 tickets sold for each of the four days so that's a huge influx of people in June really kicking off uh our summer business a good summer for the Wildwoods but not a great one as South Jersey Shore communities dealt with a slew of obstacles I think that could be attributed to uh the the high airport volume and people flying overseas for vacations there's a huge increase in flying to Europe right now Boardwalk Merchants were very upset by the lack of uh big events that would draw people to the boardwalk and um help their business the air show which brings in up to a half a million people for some reason that that didn't occur this year and it's been going on for I don't know decades Stockton Professor Michael bustler says the summer was mixed for Atlantic City casinos made a little more money mostly from online gambling while inflation played a role it has cooled off a bit over the last couple of years so once prices go up they're now not going up quite as fast so you don't have to get as much of a price increase but still those commodity prices labor prices Energy prices were up significantly in in Atlantic County R if you don't feel like fighting through all of this traffic to get one last gasp of Summer you could always head down the shore later on there's never a bad time to go to the beach in Jersey temperatures are still nice and Mild ocean temperatures are the warmest they've been summer uh there's um reduced rates in all the accommodations so you can get great hotel rates and uh no lines in restaurants as soon as kids go back to school nobody's pulling them out to go you know on vacation so it's the best time to experience things uh where the weather is still great and significantly less crowds that's still off in the future in the meantime there's slight relief in North Jersey from the Port Authority of New York in New Jersey they're pausing repairs and construction at their Crossings through the weekend while anticipating nearly 7 million people to pass through them for NJ Spotlight news I'm Ted Goldberg [Music]