Ferry delays and cancellations from any of Vancouver Island's ferry terminals are causing issues for tourist destinations all around the Island. (File photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

ferry woes

‘Pack your patience:’ ferry delays felt by Island tourism sector

Aug 3, 2023 | 4:31 PM

NANAIMO — When there are service issues with BC Ferries, the effects often reverberate across Vancouver Island.

That’s according to Brian Cant, acting head of 4-VI, formerly Tourism Vancouver Island, who said some of their tourism partners have expressed frustration when ferry delays or cancellations disrupt their guest’s vacations.

Locals also feel the effects.

“We’ve got residents wanting to travel around the province and leave the Island and then come home. We’ve got visitors that are coming to the Island and BC Ferries has had several challenges with operations, which is obviously spilling over into the concerns of our tourism partners.”

While he doesn’t have any hard data to substantiate these claims, Cant said they are currently seeing a “softening” within the tourism sector.

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Cant acknowledges economic issues are likely also in play when it comes to tourists deciding on where to vacation, however, he does acknowledge they hear recurring complaints from off-Island guests.

“What we do see from people is really late check-ins because they had to wait several sailings. We’ve also got the challenge of visitors not necessarily understanding that they can make a reservation in advance and showing up to the ferry and obviously it’s quite busy, so the wait is the frustration.”

Cant said their call centre staff consistently hear from frustrated tourists who worry about how a ferry delay will impact the rest of their trip.

“A lot of feedback that we receive from tourism businesses is they’re getting increased calls from people that are concerned, ‘I’m going to miss my flight because I don’t have a reservation for the ferry, I’m not able to plan ahead.’ That expands to residents, and our own concerns.”

He said they do advise people to “pack your patience” when planning a trip to or from Vancouver Island, although he knows patience can often run short when cancellations or delays lead to long ferry wait times.

“With one of the vessels out of service on the main route one between Victoria and Vancouver, that obviously exacerbated things. I’m hoping as we go into the long weekend, things will sail smoothly, but we’ll see.”

Long weekends are always a busy time for BC Ferries, but this year the extended weekends also seemed to coincide with technical or mechanical issues.

An outage at the BC Ferries data centre caused their website and app to crash over May long weekend, while an issue with the vessel Coastal Celebration required the rebooking of thousands of sailings on their Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay route.

“I think people that are choosing to visit here are willing to manage their way across the Island and on various routes,” said Cant. “Where we’ve always really focused, is for people just to check ahead. Check the (BC Ferries) website for updated information and I’ll say typically that’s absolutely the best place to go.”

You can also follow BC Ferries on Twitter for all of their up-to-date information.

— with files from Jon De Roo/97.3 FM The Eagle

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