Circle Line Loses Pact for Ferries to Liberty Island

The National Park Service said yesterday that it planned to have another company replace the Circle Line, which has provided ferry service to the Statue of Liberty for more than half a century.

The park service, which operates Liberty Island and other national monuments, said it had selected Hornblower Yachts Inc., a California company that provides ferry service to Alcatraz Island, the former federal prison site in San Francisco Bay.

Terry MacRae, a co-founder and the chief executive officer of Hornblower, said by telephone yesterday, “The park service wanted an improved customer experience, they wanted more education and interpretive opportunities for the guests, enhanced protection of the environment” and expanded service to other federal locations, like the Jamaica Bay NationaleRefuge.

Mr. MacRae said Hornblower might use its own boats, which are fitted with plasma television screens and elaborate multimedia presentations, as well as the Circle Line’s seven-boat fleet, which Hornblower must buy as a condition of the contract.

“That’s a discussion I can’t have with myself,” he said. “We need to be sitting at the table with the Circle Line folks, and that should be soon.”

Circle Line-Statue of Liberty Ferry Inc. bid with five other companies for the 10-year contract, potentially worth more than $350 million. The company had come under fire for a declining number of visitors, the age and condition of its fleet, and its limited routes.

In February, J. B. Meyer, president of Circle Line-Statue of Liberty Ferry, said: “We have the best-maintained fleet in New York Harbor, period. These are the right vessels for the route.”

Yesterday, in a statement, Mr. Meyer did not say how much revenue the firm had lost, but said it “looks forward to concentrating on our other New York Harbor tours,” including weekend trips to Sandy Hook, N.J.

In 1981, Circle Line split into two companies: Circle Line 42nd Street, which operates the tours around Manhattan, and Circle Line-Statue of Liberty Ferry, which plies among Battery Park, Liberty Island and Ellis Island. The two companies have different officers and directors.

In part because of the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 and increased security requirements, the number of visitors to Liberty and Ellis Islands has dropped by nearly a quarter recently. There were 4.2 million visitors last year, down from 5.5 million in 2000.

The Circle Line charges $11.50 for adults and $4.50 for children for a Statue of Liberty round trip. Under the terms of the park service contract, the ticket price may rise to $12 under a new operator.

Since 1953, the Circle Line’s boats have taken more than 70 million passengers to Liberty Island and, since 1990, to Ellis Island. In 2005, the Circle Line’s revenue from the Statue of Liberty service exceeded $35 million, making it one of the six largest commercial operations in the national park system.

In a one-page news release yesterday, the park service said it had selected Hornblower to ferry visitors to the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island.

After a 60-day Congressional review period, the service said, the contract will be signed and awarded, and Hornblower could begin operations as early as October.

Darren Boch, a spokesman for the service’s National Parks of New York Harbor, said he could not disclose details of the selection process, or the reasons why the Circle Line was rejected and Hornblower selected, but that more details would be available next month when a contract was drawn.

Hornblower is represented by Nicholas & Lence Communications, a Manhattan public relations and lobbying firm. A named partner and public relations representative for the company is Cristyne L. Nicholas, a former press secretary for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. She was the president of NYC & Co., the city’s tourist board, until January.

George Lence, Ms. Nicholas’s partner in the firm is a registered lobbyist. Their 22 clients include Related Cos., Gray Line New York Sightseeing and Zagat Survey.

Mr. MacRae, the co-founder of Hornblower, said his company had about $60 million in annual revenue, about a third of which comes from the Alcatraz operation. The majority comes from dinner cruises, yacht tours and the like, he said.

Organized labor has criticized Hornblower for using nonunion workers on the Alcatraz tour and the rest of its business. But Mr. MacRae said that some operations in Hawaii and Delaware were unionized and that he had not made up his mind about the Statue of Liberty operation, which may be renamed “Statue Cruises.”

As far as using union workers in New York, he said, “We’re used to doing it either way.”

Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee and a longtime critic of the National Park Service, described the change as “a fresh start.”

He described the 60-day review period by Congress as largely pro forma.

“Someone once told me this is the most lucrative contract in the entire National Park System,” he said in a telephone interview, “and yet for all of that money we had out there on the line, there wasn’t nearly enough done to make creative use of the Liberty Island service as an engine for service to other places,” like Riis Park, Sandy Hook or Governors Island.

“Hornblower has a great reputation, and people who deal with them out in Alcatraz say they know what they’re doing,” Mr. Weiner said.