Tourism Push Lures Ferry Passengers

Ferry passengers coming into Connecticut are being tempted to stay and spend some of their dollars beginning this holiday weekend. WNPR’s Harriet Jones reports.

More than a million people come into Connecticut each year on ferries operated between Long Island and New London, but Tony Sheridan, President of the Eastern Connecticut Chamber of Commerce says those passengers are a largely untapped resource.

“We don’t know who they are, we don’t know where they’re going to, we know they’re coming from Long Island, but beyond that we don’t know who these people are. So our first phase in this process is we’re going to try to do some surveys now of people on the ferries, and we’ll educated them about what’s available in Eastern Connecticut.”

Those same passengers will be given a taste of what they can see and do in Southeastern Connecticut in a new promotional video playing aboard all the ferries. Over images of tall ships, casinos, vineyards and quaint shoreline villages, the video urges passengers arriving from Long Island to linger for some of the sights. Stan Mikis from Cross Sound Ferries says he thinks it will be a hit.

“Every year I think we see more and more people that are looking to stay closer to home, and quite honestly some of that’s coming from Long Island to New England or to Eastern Connecticut. It’s like a whole ‘nother world. There’s so many different things to see and do here, and that’s the real lure for it.”

The Chamber originally asked for state funding to make the video, but eventually got the financing from Northeast Utilities. That’s a familiar story to tourism advocates in Eastern Connecticut – the region’s tourism district once operated on a state funded budget of more than a million dollars – now its run largely on a volunteer and privately funded basis.

For WNPR, I'm Harriet Jones.