The second iteration of the City and Borough of Juneau’s Visitor Industry Task Force has been meeting since mid-December. The group is tasked with looking at whether the city’s current approach to managing tourism is working and recommending big-picture changes to the Juneau Assembly.
KTOO’s Clarise Larson sat down with its vice chair, Kirby Day, to learn more about the priorities of the task force and how the discussions are going. Day is the Government and Community Relations Liaison for Carnival Corporation in Juneau. The task force’s next meeting is on Thursday, April 16.
Listen here:
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Clarise Larson: What prompted you to want to join this task force specifically, and why do you think it’s important for Juneau’s future?
Kirby Day: I was excited to join it. I think it’s tremendously important this kind of process is done because when I first came to Juneau in 1980 on a ship, there were 80,000 cruise passengers — and now we’re at 1.6 million. So, not only has that created challenges, but it’s created the fact that it’s a vital part of our economy. Young people are leaving Juneau. We need young people to stay here, find a good job, raise a family here, run a business. So I think that the task force gives us that opportunity to again get perspectives from not only task force members, but the public on tourism and how we can mold it to make it work and make it make sense. Because of all those good things about tourism, it’s got to be managed.
Clarise Larson: What stands out to you as something that is new, or the topics that you think need to be elaborated on?
Kirby Day: Flightseeing concerns, flightseeing noise, the growing whale watching industry. Those are different — we didn’t tackle those specifically in the first task force, but the mayor (Beth Weldon) has asked us to begin to talk about those and address those, and review this possible revolving loan program to encourage investment in clean energy and quiet technology and emission reduction by operators and industry. Also, she’d like us to look at a 10-year approach to tourism, again, based kind of on a regional effort. And then finally, identify visitor industry revenue opportunities that aren’t being taken advantage of right now, or looking at fees, looking at dockage fees and things like that.
Clarise Larson: You guys have been meeting since mid-December. What are other ways people can get involved in these discussions, as you guys are going to be making some pretty big recommendations?
Kirby Day: The public can always email the task force and then go to the website. All of our meetings that we’re currently having, there’s no public comment at the meeting. We’re just getting through the issues and getting through the meat of what we’re working on in those. But that’s why, not only can we take that public comment at any time by email, but two meetings in June are really dedicated to being able to listen to the public again and then go back and have another month or so to kind of formulate what we’ve heard, what we’ve worked on, and then make some really good recommendations to the Assembly.
Clarise Larson: Is there anything else you’d like to say to the community about why it might be good to get involved?
Kirby Day: I think it’s tremendously important because the industry, while it has its challenges and while there are concerns people have, it’s vital to our economy. It’s really important. And that doesn’t mean we don’t need to manage it. That doesn’t mean we can’t do better, but we need to find a common ground. Manage to the middle and find a common ground where we can, you know, take advantage of those benefits while making sure Juneau is a great place to visit and a great place to live.
