Travis Noyes: Whatever floats the boats

A choppy tourist market means water-taxi exec must target the locals and craft new route

Jack and Conner Noyes are impressed that their father is the chief operating officer of Harbor Experience Cos., which owns 10 commuter and tour boats in the city. But they wish he could be a skipper instead.

“It would be much cooler if I was captain of the boat,” says Travis Noyes, who was promoted in January after heading up the ferry company’s sales efforts for the past five years.

His sons’ disappointment aside, Mr. Noyes’ employer, formerly known as New York Water Taxi, is not complaining.

During his watch, Harbor Experience’s revenue grew 700% to $15 million last year, and the firm significantly ramped up its tourism business, to 70% of sales, from 50% a few years ago.

“Travis brought a new dimension to the company,” says Chief Executive Tom Fox. “The larger focus on the tour and travel markets is what brought us to profitability this past year.”

The Ikea coup

Last year, the tourism-related contracts Mr. Noyes won reeled in 400,000 passengers, or a third of the company’s customer volume. Among his biggest coups was a deal with Ikea, which selected Harbor Experience to ferry customers from Manhattan to its new store in Red Hook, Brooklyn, seven days a week.

Providing water transportation to a retail facility had never been done before, says Mr. Noyes. “That has been a huge success,” he adds.

In the midst of a deep recession, Harbor Experience is investing in its future while also girding for an expected decline in customers this year. In June, it may shed a government-subsidized commuter route along the Hudson River because funding is expected to end then. And like most tourist-dependent businesses, it is making a big push to appeal to local residents and nearby suburbanites who don’t have the funds to travel out of the area this year.

Last month, Mr. Fox bought Circle Line Harbor Cruises, adding a 600-passenger catamaran and a speedboat called Shark, as well as leaseholds at the South Street Seaport and the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“We are taking a long-term view,” says Mr. Noyes.

The young executive will be drawing on his experience as head of sales and marketing of Chicago-based Odyssey Cruises—and his love of all things waterborne. He grew up along the Florida Panhandle, where his parents have a home with a dock on the water. His step-father was the commodore of the recreational sailing leagues in northwest Florida and his grandfather was a renowned fly-fisherman in Vermont.

“There are certainly people in my life that I’m close to who can take credit for my interest in the water,” says Mr. Noyes.

Upbeat about new business

After he graduated from Florida State University, he joined Odyssey Cruises, where he stayed for five years. At that point, his wife, a native of New Zealand, landed a job in New York City.

Despite the downturn, Mr. Noyes is upbeat about his ability to continue finding new business for Harbor Experience. He is forecasting a 15% decline in passengers this year, due in large part to a smaller international pool of visitors. That market had accounted for 40% of the company’s customers.

But Harbor Experience just inked a deal to create a New York Water Taxi Beach on Governors Island—a $2 million investment. The company operates a similar beach in Long Island City, Queens. It remains to be seen, however, whether Governors Island will reopen this summer, in light of state budget constraints.

The company is betting that two pending deals and another unnanounced project will more than offset other losses.

PERSONNEL FILE
COMPANY Harbor Experience Cos. (formerly known as New York Water Taxi)
TITLE Chief operating officer
AGE 33
RÉSUMÉ Corporate marketing director, Odyssey Cruises
HOBBIES Running, Bikram yoga
MANAGEMENT STYLE Delegator

By Lisa Fickenscher

Crain’s NewYork

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