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MACKINAW CITY, Mich. (AP) — Business owners on Michigan's Mackinac Island are celebrating a big rebound in tourism this year after fewer visitors made the journey to the island in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
9 & 10 News April 21, 2021 Shepler’s Ferry departed St. Ignace for their 76th navigational season earlier Wednesday. They’re currently running three departures out of St. Ignace. President Chris Shepler said they were surprised by the number of people who showed up on the first day. Last year, COVID-19 took a heavy toll on their sales due to them only allowed to fill their boats to 75 percent, but they plan to make up for that this year by increasing capacity. “We are going to go to 100 percent capacity on our vessels, while still maintaining all of the COVID safety protocols that we ha...
The company had little choice. shepler's made more than $4 million worth of improvements by using their own cash and borrowing money. a newly paved parking lot alone cost over $1 million, including better signage and trams to bring passengers to the dock. these money matters kept chris up at night knowing if you could build it, customers might not come. >> every little decision on what we were going to spend, whether it was for a lawnmower or a new parking lot was greatly scrutinized as well do we need a new boat? no, we're not done figuring it out. >> the improvements definitely helped but th...
I said, ma'am, my name is chris shepler, what can i do for you? she said nothing, i just expect more from you. >> it is the first time only two companies were serving mackinac island. chris and his sister patty and brother, billy thought they were ready for the passengers on the boat. they were wrong. >> it exploded. the whole time you were going full tilt. >> the siblings who run the company saw the trouble almost immediately. with the season in full swing, there wasn't enough time to tackle the problems they suddenly faced. >> it was quite evident, the end of june, beginning of july, oh, we ...
>> it was a wake-up call. it was everything from a slap in the face or a kick in the butt. we tried to organize ourselves but did we really nail it? no. we didn't. >> the summer of 2017 was one for the record books at shepler's macina island ferry in northesh michigan but not in the way the familiar would have hoped. >> did we think it would be like this? we never thought it would be like it is. it was like to the point where holy crow, we've never seen anything like this. >> it is far from smooth sailing that year. >> we did scramble and did our best to take care of everybody, but on busy day...