Kirsty Gladwell
Having grown up on an Island once served by 7 separate ferry operators Kirsty has always taken ferry travel for granted.
After a number of years in various jobs Kirsty looked at the handful of brochures necessary to secure all the schedules & fares for each system serving Vancouver Island and decided that combining everything into a single guide, made a whole lot more sense.
With a brief description of each port visited by a ferry and port maps to provide visuals, she published The Ferry Traveller, a guide that contained all the information in the more than 18 different pamphlets detailing the offerings of the 7 ferry systems.
By including port maps, port descriptions and noting some of the more popular attractions in each area, the guide was a little less dry..
Through a single guide, one was now able to secure all the schedules & fares for each of the ferry systems serving Vancouver Island, Washington State and the Alaska Inside Passage.
The Ferry Traveller was printed 3 times a year and a total of one million copies were distributed through brochure racks in major & minor malls, at service stations and in tourism offices along the I-5 Corridor from Vancouver BC to the Oregon & Idaho borders.
Both the Washington and BC Ferries sold The Ferry Traveller in their on- board newsstands, and mail orders saw the reach of the guide extend across North America as both tourists planning a west coast ferry trip, and residents of the coastal communities sought to tuck the guide into their glove boxes.
The high cost of printing combined with constantly changing ferry schedules made the introduction of the World Wide Web with its ability to immediately address unexpected ferry related events, a game changer.
The internet enabled The FerryTraveller to move from a printed publication to an “electronic publication” with its location found on the internet at www.ferrytravel.com
Adopting the same principals - the distribution of ferry information - as the booklet, but with the added ability to not only stay on top of any unexpected changes, but to enable the making of quick and secure reservations online easily, the site developed International relationships.
Kirsty resides in Vancouver & remains as principal of The FerryTraveller OnLine