Rehoboth Beach community hoping Biden's vacation home will put city on the map

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (FOX 5 DC) - While all American presidents spend most of their time living in the White House, their summer vacation homes get a lot of notoriety too.

Now, one area beach town is hoping that translates to an increase in tourism as President-Elect Joe Biden gets set to take office.

“There’s a funny phrase that’s been going around and that’s Dela-where? Like, where are we? Where is Delaware?,” Rehoboth Beach Mayor Stan Mills said Monday. “And I think the state will be on the map, as well as the city of Rehoboth Beach.”

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Here’s the reason why: the Biden family owns a vacation home just north of Rehoboth in a community called North Shores, and as a result, Mills and others are hoping for the same notoriety that’s been given to other presidential vacation hotspots, like when the Trump family visits Palm Beach, Florida or when the Obama family took their annual summer trip to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

“If we can better get our name on the map so that people get curious and look us up and then decide to come here as visitors or future homeowners and patronize our businesses, so much the better,” Mills said., 

Others agree. For instance, Delaware’s tourism office sent out a release Monday urging people to visit the president-elect’s home state. It included a list of “things to do,” like visiting the Air Mobility Command Museum in Dover or Wilmington Brew Works.

Also, the head of the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce expressed optimism that the Biden family’s vacations to the area could provide the local economy with a much-needed boost, adding that she expects 30 to 40 percent of businesses in downtown Rehoboth to ultimately close due to losses stemming from the pandemic.

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“Any increase to visitation to the area is gonna help the business community survive,” Carol Everhart told FOX 5. “If we just had, let’s just say 1,000 more overnight visitors, that’s $200,000 in economic impact.”

Biden has already visited his Delaware vacation home since becoming president-elect, making a trip back last weekend.