Cruising Waters
To be 100 per cent booked for the season – often before it’s even begun – is a cruise operators dream come true. It’s one the owners of the Kawartha Voyageur experience year after year.
In operation since 1983, the 120-foot long, 45-passenger river boat offers three five-day cruises from mid-May to mid-October, one along the Rideau Canal, the other two on the Trent-Severn Waterway. It’s the only boat of its kind on the waterways and has been enlarged twice over the years to accommodate more passengers.
“Our cruisers are mature North Americans for the most part,” says co-owner Joy Ackert, “though we do get people from the U.K. and as far away as Australia.”
They come for the experience of floating along two of the world’s most beautiful, and largely undeveloped canals, in what passengers describe as a ‘floating country inn’. And most of them enjoy it so much, they keep coming back.
“Eighty per cent of our business is repeat or referrals,” says Ackert.
For more information on tourism investment opportunities throughout Ontario, please visit: www.investinontario.com/tourism/regionalinvest.asp.