Did you hear the good news? We are proud to announce that Discover Cayuga Lake was awarded the New York State Tourism Industry Association’s annual Excellence in Sustainable Stewardship: Champions of Change Award in 2025. This award highlights those who are working toward more sustainable practices, such as encouraging conscientious, low-impact visitor behavior, supporting local conservation efforts, or taking part in local decision-making efforts that support greener communities. Our Director of Tourism Initiatives, Astrid Jirka, attended the NYSTIA Summit last fall to receive the award.
Sustainable Tourism is a concept that covers a wide range of practices – from organizational management, to environmental and human impacts on destinations, and social and economic benefits to local communities. At DCL, we have spent years focusing our efforts in these areas. We’re proud of our efforts, recognize opportunities for growth, and thought we’d spend a moment here sharing our successes and dreams!
From an Organizational Management Perspective:
DCL began in 2003 with a fundamental question regarding how our community’s relationship to our waterways might change if “Everyone could enjoy our Lake”. The idea of the Floating Classroom was born and created access to the water for 1000s of children who didn’t live by the lake or have boats. Over time, the Finger Lakes Trout in the Classroom Program was also introduced as a way to put young school kids in touch with their local ecology and watershed. And all along, many people who were vested in these projects were also working on a boat which offered public cruises on the lake.
In 2018, DCL was founded and rebranded to incorporate educational programs with public cruises on a new boat into one organization. In 2020, we were recognized as a non-profit organization with a mission “to cultivate informed and equitable relationships between people and the watersheds upon which they depend” with the notion that people care more about things that they know and love, and the hope that people would come to learn about, love and protect our lake. Since that time, we have also set a goal of implementing an eco-tourism model in the Finger Lakes. Eco-tourism is a niche within the Sustainable Travel Industry that emphasizes “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and offers interpretation and educational programming”. A revenue model was developed around this idea of “Tourism with a Mission” whereby a percentage of public cruise sales would be directly re-invested in community access programming and environmental education programs.
Last but not least, our 5 Organizational Values were developed to guide our work: Sustainability, Think Global/Act Local, Collaboration, Direct Experience, and Hope, Optimism and Play.
We are extremely pleased that we have seen steady growth over the last few years in terms of the number of locals and visitors having interactive cruise experiences with us, the number of organizations we’ve been collaboring with, and the number of community members donating to and supporting us. We are optimistic and hopeful about how we can continue to work together to create postive outcomes for the future, both locally and globally!
Numerous innovative programs and organizational systems are now in place to help fulfill our visions and principles.
From an Environmental/Stewardship Perspective:
- All of our public cruises include narration on the cultural and/or natural history of the area to offer visitors the unique experience of enjoying the beauty of the Finger Lakes while understanding their unique character
- We make annual financial contributions to offset the carbon footprint generated by our diesel powered boat to our partner organization, Sustainable Finger Lakes, which in turn uses the money to improve energy efficiency in local homes.
- Our boat is used as a platform for lake monitoring by the NYSDEC CSLAP program, by the Community Science Institute, and as a platform for discussions and presentations about lake health by numerous local ecologists and resource managers every year.
- We operate a ‘Plastic Free” initiative on its boat as well as a redeemable and recycling program and encourage all of our guests to bring their own water bottles.
From a Community Benefits Perspective:
- Each year, 1000s of local residents have the opportunity to enjoy time on the lake. This is of particular value as the lake is difficult to access for local residents who do not own lakeshore homes or boats. Additionally, due to our innovative Community Access Cruise programming, local residents can learn about their lake and watershed and be inspired to take action to ensure its future resilience in the face of climate change and other regional impacts. Local experts in mission-related fields also make presentations and offer opportunities to share their knowledge.
- Our Floating Classroom Program teaches 1000s of children of many ages about lake ecology and the process of water quality monitoring every year.
- Our Trout in the Classroom Program serves nearly 2,000 students from 20 regional schools as it educates them about their local ecology.
- Our Youth Guide Program gives opportunities for teenagers to deepen their knowledge about watershed monitoring and engagement while teaching it to others and developing valuable job skills
- Our Cayuga Lake Watershed Internship Program provides in-depth exploration of environmental stewardship and management to a cohort of college students every year.
- Our boat is regularly chartered by private individuals and local organizations as a platform to host celebrations and community events which help to foster closer relationships to the lake, and environmental awareness.
- Our employees have the opportunity to develop knowledge about the place they call home and are all paid a minimum of a Tompkins County Living Wage.
From an Economic Benefits Perspective:
- As is the case for all tour operators, tourism revenue generated by DCL’s public cruises has a trickle down effect on the regional tourism community as tourists stay in local lodging, eat at local restaurants, and buy locally made goods.
- To contribute to the efforts of the regional development landscape, DCL Directors sit on numerous local Boards focused on social equity, environmental stewardship, and economic resilience.
To help guide this work, Ms. Jirka, received a certification for the Global Sustainable Tourism Council’s Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria, in the Fall of 2024. Her presentation at the NYSTIA Summit, titled Green Hearts, Blue Minds and Dream Boats, was focused on: how we can all use our hearts to advocate for a clean and livable planet through the work that we do, how we must recognize the enormous importance of clean water in particular to maintain healthy bodies and peaceful minds, and how one of the biggest hurdles that DCL still faces is converting our boats to fossil-free power.
But, as of this writing, we have more good news! DCL was granted funding by our local Assemblywoman, Anna Kelles‘, office this past winter to buy an electric boat! E-boats of the size we need to replace our current tour boat are, however, not readily on the market yet, and are expensive. So, while we continue to explore what is needed for that dream to happen (technology and funding!), we are pleased that we anticipate putting a small, 15-20 passenger sized, EV boat on the water this summer. This boat will likely be powered by electricity from the NYS Parks Marina which is solar-generated power. This means we’ll be running a solar-powered boat! The boat will further solidify work connected to our mission and values, while generating new opportunities for our community members and visitors to learn about environmental conservation and the watershed. We hope you’ll be among the first to join us!
About the New York State Tourism Industry Association: The New York State Tourism Industry Association (NYSTIA) is a member-driven, 501(c)6 nonprofit organization at the vanguard of transformational tourism marketing, stewardship and long-term strategic planning. We assist our members in advancing responsible economic growth, creating jobs, revitalizing communities, supporting small business success, and increasing state and local tax revenues to improve the standard of living, quality of life and pride of place for New York State communities and residents. For more information, visit nystia.org.