Cruise ship tourism in Juneau made international headlines last fall after voters were asked whether the city should ban all large cruise ships on Saturdays. Voters said no, but the conversation about the future of tourism’s growth is far from over.
On Tuesday, Juneau’s Visitor Industry Director Alix Pierce shared data from an annual tourism survey during a panel at the Southeast Alaska Conference’s Mid-Session Summit.
According to the survey of people who lived in Juneau during the 2024 summer season, nearly 30% said they think the positive impacts of tourism outweigh the negatives, compared to 13% who said the opposite. More than 40% said tourism has both positive and negative impacts, and 15% said they felt no impacts at all.
Pierce said the positive perception of tourism is waning.
“Support is eroding over time, and impacts are increasing,” Pierce said. “With the amount of growth that we’ve seen from 2018 frankly, I’m surprised that that slope isn’t steeper.”
The city-commissioned survey of 500 random residents took place in December. It asked them various questions about the recent tourism season and the industry as a whole.
Last summer, about 1.7 million cruise ship passengers visited Juneau. That’s a slight increase compared to the year before. In the last 30 years, the number of cruise ship visitors coming to Juneau each year has more than tripled.
Respondents reported that tourism affects them the most in downtown vehicle congestion, crowding on sidewalks and at the Mendenhall Glacier. More than half of them said they think the city is not doing enough to manage tourism’s impacts on residents.
Pierce said the input from the survey will help guide the city’s response to those issues. She said the city needs to do a better job communicating what it’s already doing to mitigate tourism impacts – and correcting any misinformation.
“It’s difficult to see a letter come through my email for the Assembly that’s in support or opposition of anything for reasons that are blatantly untrue — whether I agree with the sentiment of the letter or not,” she said.
The survey also touched on what residents think of two active proposals to build new cruise ship docks in Juneau — one that has been in the works for a few years and one that was announced just last fall.
Huna Totem Corporation is proposing to build a fifth cruise ship dock along with a waterfront development downtown. Goldbelt Incorporated is proposing to build a cruise ship port on the backside of Douglas Island. Both are Alaska Native corporations that have ties to other tourism ventures in Southeast Alaska. Neither dock project has full approval yet.
According to the data, more people were supportive or very supportive of both proposed docks than those who were opposed or very opposed. Roughly a third of those asked said they needed more information on the projects.
