BST Vacations' Peterborough Departures are back for 2022
Dana Empey, Vice President, and Scott Stewart, President of BST Vacations
BST Vacations (Blowes & Stewart Travel Group Ltd) has announced the lineup for its 2022 Peterborough Departures featuring trips to St. John’s, Newfoundland; Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; Nashville, Tennessee; New Orleans, Louisiana; Savannah, Georgia and Atlantic City, New Jersey — all from Peterborough Airport.
“The travel industry was one of the hardest hit sectors during the pandemic, so to still be here and still able to continue with our Charter Program is a huge win for us,” says Scott Stewart, President of BST Vacations. “We are so grateful for the community support we have received over the pandemic, and we look forward to welcoming our clients back on our charters in 2022 and exploring with them again.”
To learn more about the upcoming adventures and why they’re excited after having to cancel the journeys for 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic, Travel Courier caught up with Vice President Dana Empey.
Now in its 8th year, tell us a little bit about the Peterborough Departures and what inspired tours departing from Peterborough Airport?
We began the concept of the Peterborough departures when we were looking for a new and innovative idea to celebrate our 45th anniversary in business. We came up with the concept, decided on New York City and within 48 hours the first 737-400 was completely sold out so we added another plane.
Each year we continued to add more departures and we were 80% sold out when COVID hit. All departures then had to be cancelled, and 2022 is our first year resurrecting them again and we are very excited.
It’s a very specialized product and once you experience flying from the Peterborough airport it’s very tough to go back to Pearson… it’s a completely different experience.
It’s great news that the departures are taking place again after being cancelled in 2020 and 2021. Are you noticing bookings and inquiries are picking up again?
Yes, the response so far has been incredible. We reached out to all of our customers over the past few weeks who were previously booked on charters for 2020 and 2021, to allow them to rebook back on the trips they had wanted and as of Sept. 13, it is being released to our full database and the general public. We have received great feedback from clients who have travelled with us previously, and everyone is very excited to begin flying out of the Peterborough airport again.
In terms of the destinations — tell us a little about what inspired the locations/destinations for 2022?
Because we had destinations from 2020 and 2021 that were almost full – there were a few destinations that we had to bring back again. We didn’t want to disappoint our clients who really wanted to travel to the cities previously booked ie. Savannah, Nashville, etc.
We have added in some new Canadian destinations like Cape Breton because the east coast has always been a huge draw for our customer base. We hope to add some additional destinations as trips begin to sell out.
Which itinerary are you most excited about and why?
We are honestly excited about them all – I couldn’t pick just one! Our goal is down the road – to start offering longer trips – not just the Thursday to Sunday ones, and further south where possible.
After a very difficult 18 months for our industry, we are really just so thrilled we are able to resurrect the Peterborough charter program and offer this product to people who want to be travelling again in a very safe and secure environment.
Do you have anything to add?
When you travel on a Peterborough charter it is a first class, seamless experience. We offer a drive through check-in process that previous to COVID was never being done and with a few tweaks post-COVID we are truly offering a touchless check in experience.
We know this product will be very popular with people as Peterborough is a smaller airport, our COVID travel protocols are very strict and we will be able to control the whole process from check in, to baggage controls, to boarding and all cleanliness and COVID processes with the airline as well.
We have two staff on each departure to assist clients on the flight as well as in destination, we take the worry out of travel. We have streamlined the booking process with an online registration site, where you can book, and one of our agents follows up with you after to answer any question and finish the booking.
