Residents and visitors can now enjoy tours of Kissimmee’s Lake Tohopekaliga and Shingle Creek thanks to a new ecotour service. Kissimmee government officials welcomed the endeavor at a ribbon cutting on Thursday.
“A special thank you to the Florida Everglades Eco-Toon Tours for partnering with us,” said Kissimmee Mayor Jackie Espinosa. “Their service will allow visitors to explore these waterways on a fully accessible, eco-conscious pontoon boat, while learning about wildlife, endangered species, and the history of Kissimmee’s lakefront, while maintaining minimal environmental impact.”
Steve Lackey, Parks and Recreation Director for the City of Kissimmee, explained that after a competitive bid process to find an operator that would be eco-friendly and that would offer tours through pontoons, Florida Everglades Eco-Toon Tours, operated by Chris and Yvette Passmore, was chosen. Their 44foot pontoon boat is family- and petfriendly, ADA-accessible, and designed to protect the environment. In addition to teaching passengers about the local ecosystem, the experienced captains will guide passengers through the history of Kissimmee’s lakefront and provide insights into local parks and downtown businesses. Tours will depart from the Kissimmee Lakefront Park Marina.
Chris Passmore, who said he has been in the ecotourism business for 15 to 20 years, is excited every day he goes out.
“We’re very excited to have this opportunity to share what we see and what we do every day, spread the joy of the lakefront—the whole lake if we can at times—and then the natural resources that we have that no one really gets to see unless you have a boat up here,” he said. “A lot of people do not know that we start the Everglades right here. Shingle Creek is the main part of the Everglades. Without us, it might not be. We educate people about that, the history of Kissimmee, Osceola County, and then our wildlife.”
The Passmores said they have had passengers who are local Kissimmee residents and passengers from overseas.
“We’ve had people on our boat that are local from Kissimmee, and they’ve never had the perspective from being on the other side,” Yvette Passmore said. “So we’re very happy to be able to bring new memories to their families and just have people experience what we get to be blessed with every day.”
Chris Passmore added, “We have a lot of people from overseas that we do bring in because of what we do with the, like the Viator, Get Your Guide, TripAdvisor, Groupon…so we have a lot of European traffic from here, too.”
“We have over 500,000 visitors annually to this park,” Lackey said. “Having one more really unique, amazing feature… it’s going to just continue to grow and bring more people here, and more visitors. We’re very, very pleased.”
For more information, visit www.floridaevergladesecotoontours.com or Kissimmee.gov/ecotours.
