ST. ANDREWS, New Brunswick – While the rest of the tourism industry is assessing this year’s level of success, at least one tourist attraction had a very good summer.

“It may be a down market, but we’re beating the odds again,” Art MacKay, director of development for the Van Horne Estates on Ministers Island Inc., said in a news release. “I’ve just received the final visitors statistics for the 2008 summer season, and Ministers Island has increased its visitations by 24 percent.”

MacKay said he believes this validates the development plan the VHEMI started three years ago, “particularly in this seriously depressed market for tourism in New Brunswick,” he added.

MacKay said many tourism destinations are actually down 10 percent to 20 percent or more this year as gas prices and economic fears grip North America.

Ministers Island is the 500-acre summer estate of Sir William Van Horne, the man who built the Canadian Pacific Railway in record time. Located on Passamaquoddy Bay just outside St. Andrews, it features a huge unique barn, a 50-room summer home called Covenhoven, windmills, and the shore-side bathhouse where visitors could swim in a pool carved out of the sandstone on the shore. The island is a National and Provincial Historic site as well as a game reserve and is owned by the province of New Brunswick.

VHEMI was formed five years ago to develop a corporate nonprofit that would manage the island, establish a funding program, restore many of the buildings and develop programs to make the place more available to the public.

The tourist attraction’s Web site, e-mail lists, listserve and blog have become important tools in getting the message out.

“The old techniques work too, as our new poster and brochures show,” MacKay said. “Our target market? Anyone within about 100 miles and the all-important bus tours. In fact, 46 percent of our visitors came from Atlantic Canada, mostly from New Brunswick.”

For more information, go to www.ministersisland.org or call 506-529-5081.