Even with the Fourth of July holiday falling in the middle of the week, Ocean City saw a substantial bump in tourism with tens of thousands more people at the beach.
Officials estimate the town's population swelled to 331,909 on July 4. The last time the holiday fell on a Wednesday was in 2007, said Donna Abbott, director of tourism for Ocean City, and the estimate then for the one-day population was 310,877.
"We had a great July 4th holiday. With the holiday falling mid-week, traffic coming and going was spread out," Abbott said, explaining the challenge of gauging how successful the holiday was for the town. Officials use Demoflush numbers, a formula calculated by wasterwater flow, to estimate the town population during busy periods.
"Some came for the week, some for a few days and some for a very long weekend," she said.
According to Abbott, numbers for the weekend after the Fourth of July show that many visitors chose to hang around at least a few days longer. The population estimate was 330,300, an 8.1. percent increase over the same period last year.
