Tourism leads the way: Future looking good for business in Nova Scotia

Theodore Tugboat, the real-life incarnation of a cartoon tugboat beloved by so many tourists visiting Halifax, is safely docked in the Bedford Basin.

With the end of the tourist season in mid-October, Theodore is idle. So are the popular frog-motif Harbour Hopper amphibious vehicles, the antique double-decker and even charter buses that make up Ambassatours’ fleet.

They’re sitting in the maintenance bays of Ambassatours’ new, 32,000-square-foot headquarters near the Windsor Street exchange in Halifax’s North End, being readied for next year.

It has been a good year for tourism.

As 2016 draws to a close, a Conference Board of Canada report released Wednesday predicts the number of overnight visitors this year will turn out to have been 3.3 per cent higher than last year.

And Greg Hermus, the associate director of the Conference Board’s Canadian Tourism Research Institute, predicts next year will see an even bigger tourism season in …