Tourism

Norwegian Cruise Lines abruptly canceled the rest of its season’s stops in Valdez late last month, leaving local businesses scrambling. The city said the cancellations account for about a third of the expected cruise guests this summer. And for at least one tourism company, the Norwegian passengers made up nearly all of its business.

Brian Rhodes is the owner of Keystone Tourism, a sightseeing company he started this summer based on the planned number of cruise visitors. He said over the past two years, city officials have been promoting the increasing cruise traffic to Valdez business owners, and he never realized those scheduled stops were not guaranteed.

“It came (as) a shock, not only for me, but the other business owners in town, that there was no legal binding agreement between these enormous companies,” Rhodes said. “To not even be held accountable to finish out the season was really kind of hard, because then you could adjust from there. But I mean, a lot of small businesses were left holding the bag, you know, and that’s what the real bottom line is.” 

Rhodes said he plans to sell his guide business.

In a written statement, Norwegian Cruise Lines said it tries to maintain original itineraries, but “at times modifications are made to optimize the itinerary or to accommodate certain circumstances.”

Valdez Ports and Harbor Director Jeremy Talbott said that Norwegian pulling out is a big hit to the local economy, but the city has consistently cautioned business owners to focus on in-state visitors. Alaskan tourists still make up the majority of Valdez tourists, Talbott said, and are much more reliable than cruise lines.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jeremy Talbott: I think we’ve made it very clear – when the vessels first started coming back, we do a lot of trainings and stuff to help businesses, we offer at every one of these meetings, these business meetings I attend. And we’ve discussed this quite a bit. And I’ve been pretty vocal about reminding everybody that hey, this happened before. And I specifically myself have said, this is the dessert, this is not the main course. We are a community that is RV, Alaskan-situated. And so if your business can survive really well with the local tourism that we have, year in and year out Alaskans and RVs, and it can adapt to cruise ships and provide some of those excursions. But don’t depend on the cruise ships. We’ve been very vocal at every meeting since early 2017, before the first boat arrived, and since then at every other public meeting.

Michael Fanelli: You said you’ve experienced this before? Is this a somewhat common thing for cruise lines to cancel a whole season of stops?

Jeremy Talbott: Yes, mid-season, this has happened before. It has not impacted our community like this one has. This one specific one that canceled last season, they canceled 25-plus runs. They were coming on Wednesdays and Saturdays doing a passenger transfer in and out of, between Whittier and Valdez. This one we felt more impact because this one was spending 12 hours here, and they were booking excursions and recreating in the city. And so our local businesses  are really feeling the impact from this one. The last one they didn’t feel the impact because they weren’t spending a lot of time here, were not booking excursions.

Michael Fanelli: So what did (Norwegian) tell you? Did they give you any explanation for why they were canceling?

Jeremy Talbott: So before they did it, no. I have had a meeting with one of their team members… And it wasn’t one single thing, it was multiple things. But they’re in the business of making a profit, and so I’m assuming that had, you know – the boat when it was coming in was only coming in half full. That run was not selling very well, and I think that somebody just made a decision that it wasn’t enough to be profitable for them. I asked them during that conversation if there was a problem with the dock there, and they’ve confirmed no problem with the dock.

Other cruise lines are operating, you know, similar routes successfully and they’re adding more vessels. Viking is adding a second ship in 2025, Holland continues to come in and come out, Carnival’s coming in next year. And so we have returning vessels. It’s disappointing, but I don’t think that the city is the reason why they’re not coming here.

Dakotah Hendricks from Virginia Beach, Va., made sure she did everything right in order to visit her husband, who is deployed overseas, this summer.

She filed an application for a new passport months in advance and paid for expedited processing. She spent hours on the phone with the passport hotline and even sought help from her local congressman. But four months later, Hendricks had no choice but to miss her flight.

“I applied for this with enough cushion room for there to be delays,” she told NPR. “But that didn’t matter.”

Across the country, long-awaited reunions and hard-earned vacations are being upended by what the State Department described as an “unprecedented demand for passports.”

In March, the department said standard processing time for a new or renewed passport could take up to 13 weeks. But many passport seekers are finding that the wait is well beyond that — leaving trips abroad compromised and travelers scrambling for refunds on airfare and lodging.

The State Department says it receives about 400,000 applications each week

The stubborn passport delays are, in part, a consequence of the pandemic. As the health crisis has waned, interest in international travel has picked up in turn — causing a surge in applications for new or renewed passports.

As of July, the State Department receives about 400,000 applications each week, which is only slightly lower than the record-setting volume of 500,000 applications received per week between January and May.

Last year, the U.S. issued 22 million passports, a historic high — and is expected to once again surpass the record this year.

A spokesperson for the State Department said they are hiring more staff and authorizing overtime to keep up with the demand. The department also plans to launch a website for online passport renewal applications by the end of the year. The online option is expected to help process about a quarter of applications.

Long wait times and thousands of dollars lost

Keisha Peterson from Maryland spent a year saving up over $3,000 for a vacation in the Bahamas — her 9-year-old daughter’s first trip abroad. They planned to leave on Sunday.

But instead of packing, Peterson said she is finding out whether she can get a voucher or credit for their flights, because her daughter’s passport did not come in time.

“I’m feeling disappointed, devastated, frustrated and just emotionally drained,” she told NPR. “It should not be this hard to get a passport.”

Peterson filed her daughter’s application in March. Two weeks ago, she learned that she was missing some paperwork. After submitting the proper documents, Peterson learned on Friday that the department made a mistake about which documents they needed.

The only silver lining, Peterson said, was that her daughter did not know about the trip or that it was canceled, because it was meant to be a surprise.

“What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her,” she said.

Meanwhile, Hendricks rescheduled her flight to a Mediterranean country, where she and her husband planned to meet, for mid-July. Up until recently, Hendricks, a former member of the U.S. Navy, did not need a passport because service members do not need one when they are sent abroad.

Hendricks said if she does not have her passport by then, she will have lost about $2,500 and will be unable to see her husband until he returns from deployment at the end of the year.

“It’s my only chance,” she said. “The way his schedule works, I don’t get a redo.”

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Alaska’s top tourist attraction, the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, is reaching its capacity for commercial tours this year sooner than in previous years, due to the growing number of visitors.

This means tour operators are also facing limits in the second half of the summer season on how many tours have permits to visit the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area, which is overseen by the U.S. Forest Service.

The Forest Service said in a statement that it is asking for the public’s patience and understanding.

The commercial-tourism limits are in place to protect the local ecosystems and natural resources, as well as the experiences of visitors, according to the Forest Service. A limit of 517,650 visitors was set in 2015 after an environmental analysis of the area. But with the exception of the pandemic – which shut down the industry for nearly two years – the number of cruise-ship visitors has grown. The cruise-ship industry projected 1.65 million visitors to Alaska this year.

Business owners knew this day was coming, but it still stings, said Serene Hutchinson, general manager of Juneau Tours, which has operated for more than 20 years.

“Mostly, it’s hard to be disappointing people all day long,” she said.

She said her business plans to carefully manage its remaining permits for glacier visits. But she’s also trying to make up for the limits with additional city tours of Juneau and with whale-watching tours. She acknowledged that for Juneau visitors, the glacier is iconic.

“I’ve kind of made it through all five stages of grief and you’re catching me at ‘acceptance,’” Hutchinson said.

She added that she feels sympathy for Forest Service staff facing public criticism: “We’re a small town and we know them all personally. … I’m grateful for them and I trust them to make the right decision.”

The glacier’s visitor capacity was adjusted slightly upward in 2019, adding 55,000, after restrooms and other facilities were expanded. The Forest Service is considering further expanding facilities as a longer-term solution. That proposed project is under review by the public.

Juneau Deputy District Ranger Laura Buchheit, in a statement, described the public engagement with the proposal as being “in the final stretch.”

“Protecting this special place while adapting to unprecedented increases in visitation is a significant challenge, and we appreciate everyone’s patience as we move through the process,” Buchheit said.

This story originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.

White Pass and Yukon Route rail workers voted last week to authorize a strike. The railway is Skagway’s biggest employer and one of the most popular tourist attractions in Southeast Alaska.

Jason Guiler, who chairs the local chapter of the union that represents White Pass’s 27 Alaska-based engineers, conductors and brakemen, said the vote “was overwhelmingly supported by the body.”

“I think that many of the group feel that it’s unfortunate that at this point, that company has yet to come forward with a recognition of the wages that we do deserve,” he said.

In a press release, union Vice President Brent Leonard said the railroad’s pay has not kept up with the cost of living.

“Six years is far too long for these families to go without normal raises,” he said in the release. “Many of these men and women leave their homes and families for several months of the year in order to work for this railroad.”

A strike will not happen right away. Negotiations are bound by the Railway Labor Act, which requires mediation and a 30-day cooling-off period before workers could strike.

But the union says negotiations are “in limbo” after a negotiating session over the holiday weekend failed to resolve what the union describes as a 6-year dispute over compensation, staffing and safety.

“As we met through the weekend, there were points in time that seemed as though we were starting to make some movements,” Guiler said. “But unfortunately, in the end on Sunday, it ended in a stalemate.”

Guiler says the union members want to keep working, but they also want recognition for the work they do. 

“It’s an opportunity to be able to participate in these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and experiences with these guests who come to visit Skagway and Alaska,” he said. “The brakeman and engineer position is something that we love to do.”

As of Friday morning, representatives of the railroad had not responded to a request for an interview.

Sitka hosted more than 13,000 cruise-ship visitors in one day last week. That’s nearly one and a half times the roughly 8,300 people that live in the community, based on the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Sitkans understood that there would be days like this: Visitors shoulder-to-shoulder along the roughly five blocks of Lincoln Street that were closed to vehicle traffic for the occasion.

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz owns a retail store in the heart of this area. At Tuesday’s assembly meeting, he wondered aloud whether June 21 was a bonanza — or a lesson in overcrowding.

“The general consensus that I got was, if you had a storefront, you said it was too many people. If you had a food truck, or you were out on the street like that, you generally liked it because you sold out early and you got to go home,” Eisenbeisz said. “The feeling even from the merchants who stand to profit from that was that 10,000 people in one day was far too many. And I say that not because it was one or two, but it was everybody.”

Sitka administrator John Leach said he took a walk downtown to visit with business owners. Leach told the assembly that it wasn’t just Sitka’s main street that was overcrowded.

“Trying to do work at City Hall, our bandwidth was gone,” Leach said. “And our computers slowed to a crawl, and our phones weren’t working. So I know other communities have had these issues before. I know Juneau had these issues when they had their cruise boom. And I reminded some of the folks that I talked to in the cruise industry of some of the early discussions we had about over commitment of Sitka’s resources. And where is that balance?”

Off of main street, other organizations were also feeling the pinch. The Sitka Sound Science Center announcing that they were reducing their hours and closing at 3 p.m. Center director Lisa Busch says her organization values the opportunity to educate people about science, salmon, and the ocean, but this was just too many people.

“We are just realizing what our carrying capacity is for that, for our staff and for our building,” Busch told KCAW in a phone interview. “We just can’t take all the people that want to come all at once.”

Busch says closing earlier will give her staff a chance to prepare for the next day and fulfill other functions at the center, which is a year-round scientific research facility.

The high volume of cruise passengers in Sitka on June 21 was caused by the simultaneous visits of the Ruby Princess, the Eurodam and the Quantum of the Seas. Those same three ships are scheduled to be back in port on July 19.

Skagway’s railroad workers are voting on whether to authorize a strike.

The workers’ union says it’s seeking wages that keep up with inflation, affordable health care and no job cuts. The dispute is playing out amid a cruise season that’s expected to be bigger than ever this year. If the union doesn’t reach an agreement with White Pass, a strike could cause major disruptions to one of Southeast Alaska’s most popular tourist attractions.

“More than half of the passengers that come through Skagway ride the train,” said Mayor Andrew Cremata. “Skagway’s history is linked with the railroad, so losing operations on the railroad would definitely have a significant impact.”

The White Pass and Yukon Route runs from Skagway into Canada’s Yukon Territory. It’s the largest private employer in Skagway.

Jason Guiler chairs SMART Transportation Division Local 1626, the union that represents the 27 Alaska-based engineers, conductors and brakemen who work for White Pass. He said he’s worried about permanent cuts to brakeman positions – one of three workers on the train at all times, and the one responsible for the brakes. He said the union views it as a safety concern.

“Having three people on board a train is critical when you’re carrying 600-plus guests on board,” he said.

Guiler said the union’s previous contract ended in 2017, and wages and health care costs are other key issues for the union as it negotiates a new one. 

Even if the union votes to authorize a strike, it wouldn’t happen right away. The national mediator would have to release workers from mediation. Then, the mediator would offer both the union and the company the chance to have an arbitrator analyze the situation and reach a verdict. If either group rejects the offer to arbitrate, a strike could happen 30 days later.

White Pass is owned by an investment group that includes the Carnival Corporation and Ketchikan-based Survey Point Holdings. 

“White Pass and Yukon Route is committed to working towards the resolution of these negotiations in the interests of all involved,” the railroad’s Executive Director Tyler Rose said. “However, we do not believe it is appropriate to further comment to the media on the mediation process at this time.”

Cremata said he hopes White Pass executives realize the role that workers play in keeping people safe on and off the train.

“If you’re in Skagway on a busy day – which is every day here in the summer – the trains go through easements across city roads and a lot of people are moving back and forth,” he said. “A lot of them have their heads buried in a phone, or they’re taking a picture and not paying attention, and I worry about safety.”

Guiler said he couldn’t share specifics on the wage increases proposed by both parties, but he said the union recognized the company’s lost profit during the pandemic. He said the union is “strictly looking to” increase wages to keep up with inflation.

Cremata said that’s important for Skagway residents.

“It’s expensive to live here,” he said. “In the last couple of years, I’ve seen prices at the grocery store double, if not more. So it concerns me to think that people who live in this community may not be able to afford to live in this community anymore.”

Union members have three days to vote. They’re set to meet with company representatives and a mediator on Friday morning.

“From there, I’m hopeful that that mediation meeting will move in a forward direction that can help bring us and the company together,” Guiler said.

Cremata said Skagway’s tourist season is going well so far, and he hopes White Pass and its workers can reach an agreement soon.

“The impacts to White Pass from a strike would certainly be severe,” he said. “But the impacts of having people work in this community and not being able to make a fair wage also has a significant impact.”