A new maritime passenger carrier offering cheaper travel rates will be launched soon.
Company officials held a press launch for the Jeans Ferry Service on the morning of Monday, June 6th, 2011 at the Fort Young hotel.
Managing Director of L’Express Des Iles Roland Bellemare confirmed that the travel fares will be lower than what currently exists.
Bellemare commented on the increased travel over the years between Dominica and the neighbouring French Island with the L’express des Iles.
“We operate between Dominica, Guadeloupe and Martinique, three to seven return services depending on the period and between Martinique and St. Lucia, three to four return services a week. We carry, on this international route, over one hundred and eighty-four thousand (184 000) passengers in 2010 and for the first time since we started this service, our traffic in and out of Dominica ranked the first position. We used to have in the following order: Guadeloupe-Martinique market being the first one, then the St. Lucia one and Dominica the last one. In the year 2010, for the first time, Dominica ranked first with over sixty-three thousand (63 000) passengers in and out of Roseau.”
President of the Dominica Hotel and Tourism Association Simon Walsh has welcomed the introduction of a new ferry service. This he says means improved access to St. Lucia and the neighbouring French islands.
“This is very good news for us here today. When we look at our statistics, we see that one of our target markets that we need to spend a little bit more time and attention to is the French market. It is a large market. It is accessible and some of the limitations we are having really in appealing more to the French market has been accessibility.
“With this new ferry system, let us hope that we are making a step in the right direction and with one hundred and thirty-seven (137) passengers coming in three times a week; it does open up the French market. Another thing we have been talking a lot about is the St. Lucia connection. Hopefully, we are going to find that this opens up access into St. Lucia. Once we open up access into S. Lucia, the access from St. Lucia directly into the US mainland is also easy now with more airlines like Jet Blue and other airlines coming in finding that St. Lucia is a very attractive gateway into Dominica.”
Hon. Tourism Minister, Ian Douglas, hopes that the new ferry service will create more opportunities for the further development of relations between Dominica and the French.
“We want to share in much more experiences that this ferry gives us the opportunity to do: in culture, in sports, in entertainment, in education, this is what I see, most importantly, this ferry will do especially with your low-cost structure that you have employed. You will allow more of our people to interact and share.”
If some of us would chang our bad behaver thing will chang for the whole of us I travel to Guadeloupe and never have any trouble.
They need to make a stop near the international airport in St. Lucia. It is a long and expensive taxi ride from the local airport to the international one on St. Lucia.
Thats good news only that the french will embrace us and remove those disgusting immigration measures on Dominicans, they never go thru all that hassle in Dominica. I think we should be a french colony to travel like them.
This is not a “New Ferry Service”. This is L’Express des Iles with their new strategy.
We have to much to go through when we have to travel to the french countries, i hope that better measures will be put in place. The french nationals spend so much time in our country long as they want
This is raeal good news indeed, but i do hope that Dominicans moving back and forth into the french islands can be more hassel free. I think that we in Dominica have to go through to much when we have to visit the our french naighbours. I pray the day will come when we will be able to travel just like the french people.