Recently, the Los Angeles Times published an article about the growing importance of ‘online influencers’ —ordinary people whose actions are followed by thousands of supporters on social media. These influencers have a “trusted voice” that speaks to their own personal audience.

Marketing firms like Instabrand are now including influencers as an essential part of their advertising campaigns.

In 2007, the emerging world of social media was spoofed by a video featuring a bride-to-be having a meltdown and cutting off her hair in a hotel room just an hour before her wedding. The idea of the video “Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out” was to get attention for a new hair product.

Did we just witness a similar video with “Woman Loses Mind Learning BC Ferries are Full”? The video shows a woman screaming hysterically when she (apparently) is told that it’s too late to board the ferry at Tsawassen. According to one news report she is heard yelling, “You have no idea what it means to people” as she walks out of the ferry terminal.

Vancouver Islanders have witnessed BC Ferries services decline while the fares steadily increase.

Could this video have been the brainchild of some marketing company trying to gauge how fed up people are over BC Ferries? Maybe this disgruntled passenger might want to take a “reliable, dependable fast, passenger-only ferry service between downtown Nanaimo and downtown Vancouver” such as the proposed Island Ferries.

Councillor Bestwick mentioned at the last council meeting that getting Island Ferries up and running is a number one priority for the City of Nanaimo.

Despite all the problems with BC Ferries, it’s still a lot safer than taking a ferry in Greece.

At the last council meeting BC Ferries put forward a motion to have three LED signs installed at the Departure Bay terminal for a cost of approximately $300,000. BC Ferries also plans to install similar signs at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal. That would be a total cost of at least $600,000. The purpose of these signs would be to generate revenue from ads and to tell drivers to shut off their engines, etc.

Unhappy neighbours

The residents in the area gave presentations to council outlining several concerns regarding the proposed installation of these LED signs.  The signs are 9 meters tall and 20 square meters in area. There would be significant light pollution for the neighbours.

BC Ferries only held public open houses on weekdays before and directly after Labour Day.  The neighbouring residents presented a petition against the proposed signs to which Councillor Greves commented, “I don’t think much of petitions, there is even someone who signed this from Ontario.”

In the end, all the councillors opposed the three signs and their size except for Councillor Anderson who stepped out when it came time to vote.

Unsatisfied customers

In July about 100 vehicles meant to be loaded onto the 3:10 p.m. sailing from Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay were held back while terminal staff gave the green light to vehicles that had arrived later. Some passengers had to wait over five hours. Although BC Ferries issued a refund for the loading error, many passengers were still unhappy. What is the average wait time for people in a ferry line up in the busy summer months?

After this experience, what are the chances these tourists will want to return?

Queue System

At the same council meeting Councillor Bestwick asked the BC Ferries representative: “How many walk-ons are there?  How many people are first time ferry users?”  The BC Ferries rep did not have these stats available. Do they know?

Ferry rates have increased as much as 75% and there has been a decrease in service routes. BC Ferries should be restoring service levels.

BC Ferries needs a queue system to manage lineups, rather than the current reservation system which creates a ‘have’ and ‘have not’ line up. It’s not effective and it’s costly to operate.

In other countries they are using queue systems that are effective and do not require people to line up. BC Ferries needs to think outside the box. Ferry line ups can be eliminated.

What if there were self-serve kiosks set up around Nanaimo or Parksville and tourists could print their own transportation tickets, baggage tags, and then, just like an online order, a person could stay informed through a mobile app when to arrive at the ferry? Just think what an economic boon it would be for Nanaimo. Instead of people waiting in a car for five hours, people could be spending more time in town shopping or eating at restaurants.

BC Ferries could also implement a system where people could order their food in advance without lining up at the cafeteria. People could present a receipt and their food order would be ready.

We live in a modern world; it’s time for some creative thinking.

BC Ferries is an independent company with a contract to provide ‘ferry services’ for the BC government. It should actually be called ‘Corrigan’s Company’ or something that doesn’t make it sound like it’s a government department.

This spring, Transportation Minister Todd Stone approved $19 million in cuts to BC Ferry coastal routes. Over 3,000 sailings were cancelled. At the same time, BC Ferries introduced a 4.2% increase in fares for the major routes, a 2% increase on Northern routes and reduced the passenger fare discount for BC seniors travelling Mondays to Thursdays from 100% to 50%.

How did these cuts to service and increased fares play out?

Record Profits

In August, BC Ferries announced that net earnings from April to June 2014 were $13.9-million, compared with $4.3-million in the first quarter of the previous year.

These profits have come at a cost.  Coastal communities are being killed off one by one and those in government that are paid to listen are deaf as a post.

Discovery Coast Passage Route

On April 28, 2014, BC Ferries discontinued the Discovery Coast Passage Route with direct service from Port Hardy to Bella Coola.

They have taken out the regular sized ferry, the Queen of Chilliwack, and replaced it with the smallest open-deck car ferry “Nimpkish” which can only take 16 vehicles and up to 95 passengers.

Tourists now ride the open waves for 10 hours, arriving in the dark; hungry and stiff because there is no food only a vending machine and nowhere to sit.

If BC Ferries ran the Queen of Chilliwack it would take more passengers (389) and it has amenities. Tourists can sit on a seat or eat in the cafeteria. It has coin-operated showers, recliner seats, an elevator, and washrooms for people with disabilities. The Nimpkish has no amenities. None.

The Discovery Coast Passage route has been used by European tourists, who took the ferry from Port Hardy to Bella Coola and drove through the Chilcotin to Williams Lake and back down to Vancouver for a circle tour.

According to legislative reporter Tom Fletcher (who normally toes the government line) it was a bleak summer for tourism in the region as a result of the ferry changes. A bus tour of Canadian seniors heading west from Williams Lake was cancelled after 14 years. One tourism operator is considering closing down and other Cariboo-Chilcotin operators lost up to 90% of their business. This has a cumulative effect and soon there will be no operators that can survive.

With the tiny 16-vehicle Nimpkish now on the route, even if every sailing was filled to maximum capacity only 720 vehicles can be carried. That means the traffic level can only reach about one-third of the 10-year average. Two-thirds of the traffic that would have used the ferry in a typical year will now be turned away, unable to visit the region at all.

What does this mean for tourism on Vancouver Island?

Resource Extraction over Tourism

Why would the BC government want to kill coastal tourism and particularly in the area of Cariboo-Chilcotin? Would it be because there are plans for the world’s largest open pit mine that will take up 90% of the area?

BC Ferries increases fares again. What does this mean for coastal communities? Why is the BC Ferries ‘system’ not working? Here is the latest press release from the Ferry Advisory Committee :

“Ferry fares continue their relentless climb into regions of unaffordability, accompanied by repetitive rhetoric from the provincial government that is disconnected from acceptance, or even understanding, of the needs of BC’s coastal region.

With the fare increases taking effect on April 1 and fuel surcharges imposed in January, most passenger fares are up 8.4 percent and vehicle fares are up 7.4 percent over last year, yet another round of fare hikes far above inflation. And seniors now have to pay for travel from Monday to Thursday.

On those northern routes that will continue to operate, fares are up only 1.5 percent, but the fare break is too little, too late. On the northern route due for outright elimination, Route 40 serving the central coast, fares increased 60 percent and traffic dropped 43 percent in a straight line since 2007, under operating conditions that ran counter to local residents’ suggestions to improve the route’s efficiency. Now it’s considered unprofitable, and treated as unsalvageable, regardless of the damage that will result to local communities and BC’s tourism industry.

Traffic and fares on all the minor routes are following the same pattern, and the response is to cut service rather than to address the root problem – unaffordable fares.

Vehicle traffic this year will be the lowest in 15 years, while passenger traffic will be the lowest in 23 years. This comes at a time when provincial GDP and populations are both increasing. While this has a direct bearing on BC Ferries’ revenue, it’s also a surrogate for the creeping harm that undermines coastal regions that depend on the ferries as a lifeline.

Until the provincial government addresses the real problem – adequate funding to support realistic fares – all the band-aid fixes in the world will only delay the ultimate day of reckoning. While the provincial government refers to keeping BC Ferries sustainable – a red herring – they ignore the sustainability of the ferry-dependent coastal communities, as that real economic sustainability becomes more in danger every year.

User-pay ideology has been mindlessly imposed on the ferry system, up to and beyond the tipping point where it is now crippling BC’s coastal region and undermining BC’s tourism reputation internationally.

The provincial and federal governments contributed roughly $180 million last year to BC Ferries’ operations. Ferry users contributed more than $500 million. At this key moment in BC Ferries’ history, when so many ships and terminals need replacement, more money will be needed. There is no cheap solution nor infinite capacity of customers to absorb ever-higher fares.

 We call on the Province to back away from more user pay and consider these realities:

• BC’s coastal region and the ferry system are intertwined and depend on each other for survival.
• It costs money to operate and maintain assets of one of the largest ferry systems in the world.
• All of BC benefits from affordable ferry service. Policies that substantially change the service need to be supported by some analysis of costs, benefits and economic and social impacts.”