Le Boat is bringing tourism and jobs to Smiths Falls.
Le Boat, a leading European travel company, will be using an investment from the provincial government to create their first North American cruise rental location. An investment of 16 million dollars by Le Boat will be subsidized with investments of $1,500,000 from the Eastern Ontario Development Fund, $360,000 from the Tourism Development Fund and just under $140,000 from the Tourism Industry Partners Program.
Cheryl Brown, Managing Director with Le Boat, says this week the company also moved their North American offices to the new Smiths Falls location. She says the operation will start in 2018 with 16 boats and they plan to add four every year after that until they have 32 in the Rideau Fleet. When the company first planned to open the Smiths Falls location it was going to be purely operational but halfway through the project they decided to move their headquarters as well. Now on top of operational staff like boat technicians the sales and marketing staff will also be in Smiths Falls.
Le Boat is Europe’s largest self-drive boating vacation company. They currently operate across eight European countries and their head office is located in the United Kingdom. Le Boat says they serviced over 100,000 customers last year. Le Boat hope to bring a unique European-style, self-hire boating service to the Rideau Canal. The project is expected to be completed in its entirety by September of 2022 but boats will be available for rent in May of 2018.
