Yarmouth ferry's advanced bookings up five-fold, Bay Ferries says

Advanced bookings for the Yarmouth, N.S., ferry are up five-fold compared to last year at this time, the head of Bay Ferries Ltd.said Friday.

The company tookover the service last year after the province pulled the plug on its previous operator,Nova Star Cruises, in 2015 amid mounting bills.

• Provincial officials praise new Yarmouth ferry operator, slam Nova Star

"What [Bay Ferries is]showing at this point is a five-fold increase over booking levels at the end of April this year compared to last year," said MarkMacDonald,chairand CEO of Bay Ferries, whichruns the ferry between Nova Scotia and Portland, Maine.

"It's a massive increase, but last year we were just getting going and sales started later, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison."

MacDonaldsaid they collect the information and share it with the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia to ensure there's enough hotel capacity for their passengers.

Compares to bumper 2007-08 years

MacDonald won't make any predictions for the rest of the season, which starts May 31 and goes to Oct. 15.

Bay Ferries previouslyran the service until 2009, so they compared the new figures to historical ones.

"It tracks along with what we were doing in the 2007-2008timeframe," said MacDonald.

"If we look at how those seasons ultimately worked out, that's when we were running in the 90,000- to 100,000-passengers-a-year level."

He declined todisclose the actual advanced-booking numbers.

MacDonald said he thinks people who took the ferry last year spread the word.

"We know people liked the service last year because we did a comprehensive customer survey at the end of the season."

96% of passengers would recommend it

Through a corporateresearch company, theycontacted 10,000 passengers with a survey that tookabout 20 minutes to complete. They got 3,100 full responses.

MacDonald said of those, 93 per cent said the service met or exceeded expectations. Some 96 per cent said they'd recommend it to a friend.

"Our advisers on this tell us those are extremely high numbers," he said.

This year, Bay Ferries will start operating the servicefive days a week, then ramp up to six days and then seven days a week at peak season, before ramping down to five at the end.

"What we're trying to do is stretch out the season for the benefit of the operators. We think we can move as many people in the slightly reduced sailing schedule at the extremities of the season," he said.

In October, Bay Ferries said the CAT ferry carried 35,551 passengers in the 2016 season, which ran June 15 to Oct. 1.That was about 15,000 fewer passengers than the now-defunct Nova Star ferry did in 2015.