Tourism

The Juneau Assembly and cruise line agencies will hold a joint meeting Thursday afternoon to discuss the cruise ship tourism season ahead. 

The hour-long meeting will begin at noon on Thursday at City Hall in the Assembly Chambers. It will include leaders from Cruise Lines International Association Alaska and other industry representatives.

Both Assembly members and industry leaders can ask and answer questions about the cruise season, which kicked off last week. 

The meeting tomorrow is open for the public to attend in person or online, but there won’t be an opportunity to testify. Juneau’s visitor industry director, Alix Pierce, says it’s a chance for residents to hear from the industry directly. 

Juneau residents who want to suggest specific topics for discussion can email the Assembly prior to the meeting. The meeting is informational only and the Assembly will not be voting on anything. 

Industry leaders also met with Ketchikan’s City Council for a joint public discussion on Wednesday. 

The backcountry ski and snowboard community has long dubbed Haines “the Dream Stop” for the rugged terrain and pristine conditions it offers athletes.

Less than a year from now, the area will have the chance to live up to that moniker again during the Freeride World Tour, a competition of the world’s top riders.

The event will mark the first time the tour has visited Alaska since 2017. Tour CEO Nicolas Hale-Woods said that’s a major win for the tour and the athletes it draws — many of whom have dreamt about competing in the region their whole lives.

“Alaska, and Haines in particular, is the ultimate free ride destination,” Hale-Woods said in an interview. “And we’re very, very happy to put that stop on the calendar once again.”

The tour announced the Haines stop earlier this week. It will be the fifth in a series of six competitions where skiers and snowboarders fly down ungroomed slopes, chasing a world champion title.

The athletes have to start and end at a certain point on the mountain. But otherwise, they’re free to choose their route. Using binoculars, judges score and rank participants out of 100 points.

“They’re not allowed to ride and ski the mountain before their competition run, which makes it very difficult,” Hale-Woods said. “They have to basically memorize their line and show control, fluidity and jumps.”

After a three-year run in Haines between 2015 and 2017, the event shifted to other locations because it cost too much money to get competitors and support crews to Southeast Alaska — and into the mountains via helicopter, Hale-Woods said.

This year, the event has funding help from outside sponsors, including outdoor goods company Yeti and apparel brand Peak Performance. But the Haines borough also plans to kick in at least $75,000 to make it happen and is looking for ways to potentially contribute another $25,000, said Haines tourism director Rebecca Hylton.

The funding was allocated during last year’s budget cycle and then reapproved this year. Hylton said the money will come from a funding bucket meant for tourism and economic development.

In a funding pitch to the borough, she estimated the event could generate more than $400,000 in local spending, providing a boost to the town’s economy in the off-season, when it needs it most.

All told, Hylton said the competition is expected to bring more than 100 people to town for about a week, depending on the weather.

“They’ll be staying here in town, and a few people up the highway as well,” Hylton said. “And there should be a really positive economic impact to our community, to different sectors of our community.”

The City and Borough of Juneau clerk’s office has certified a ballot petition that would put harder limits on cruise ship tourism in Juneau. 

The local advocates who filed the petition earlier this month can now begin collecting signatures in hopes of landing a spot on the local election ballot this October. The group must collect a minimum of 2,720 signatures from qualified Juneau voters before its May 19 deadline.

The proposed initiative seeks to impose a five-ship daily limit, cap the annual number of cruise ship visitors at 1.5 million a year, and limit daily cruise visitors to 16,000 people on most days and 12,000 on Saturdays. It would also shorten the season to last only from May until September. 

The cruise ship season currently lasts from April through October. 

City Clerk Beth McEwen and City Attorney Emily Wright approved the petition despite opposition from Allen Marine Tours, which asked them to deny the application. 

In a letter, an attorney representing the tour company called the proposed initiative poorly drafted and “wholly inadequate in attempting to address the complexity of limiting, permitting, and penalizing cruise ship visitation.”

There are three other proposed ballot propositions currently under review by the city clerk. Those petitioners seek to cap the property tax rate, to remove sales tax on food and utilities and to make in-person voting the default again.

The Norwegian Bliss and its more than 4,000 passengers arrived in Juneau this afternoon to kick off the 2025 cruise ship season. 

City officials say tourism this year is uncertain, but visitors and vendors started the season with  optimism. 

The familiar sounds of tourists chatting on the seawalk, shuttle buses in the street and chicken sizzling at Bernadette’s barbecue filled the air. 

Tourists meandered down the seawalk, into downtown stores and to the Mendenhall Glacier. Patricia Cespedes was headed to the Goldbelt Tram with her sister. She’s from Peru but currently lives in Los Angeles.

“It was always my wish that I really wanted to come and see Alaska. It always looks so beautiful,” Cespedes said. “It was on my bucket list.” 

Another visitor, Debbie Ohl of Pennsylvania, was on her way to catch a bus to the Mendenhall Glacier. She said she booked a trip early in the season on purpose. 

“I took the cruise because I want to see glaciers, and I want to see wildlife, and I want to see mountains with snow and anything they have to offer, because I love winter,” Ohl said. “Winter is my favorite.”

The blustery spring day might have felt like winter for some visitors coming from down south, as cold rain drizzled down on the docks. 

Tyrone Payne with Juneau Tours said sales were great and there hadn’t been any hiccups.

“We sold out of our whale watches immediately, in less than an hour, and all of our times for the shuttle have been sold out already,” he said. “We only have one time left for the day. So sales have been going really well.”

City officials have warned of economic uncertainty this season. That’s amid the Trump Administration’s tariffs and recent federal firings that could impact the operation of the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, which is Juneau’s most popular tourist attraction.

Out at the glacier, staff greeted the tourists who trickled in. It was Saaní Liana Wallace’s first day greeting the public as a cultural ambassador, and she said she was excited to talk to the visitors.

“It’s my very first minute, how do you like that?” she said.

The ambassadors were hired by the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska to share Indigenous language, history and culture with tourists. This year they may serve a larger role at the glacier, after the Trump administration’s federal firings left the Forest Service’s presence at there in flux. 

“You know, we’re going to do the best we can with what we got, and I’m feeling very optimistic about it,” said Cultural Ambassador Supervisor Aankadax̱steen Jeremy Timothy.

Timothy said he was eager to see how the first day of cruises goes, so the ambassadors can prepare for the rest of the season.

“I mean, we’ve gone through quite a bit of hardships and things back and forth, but, you know, I’m hoping that things kind of turn out in a positive aspect for us,” he said.

There won’t be any staff at the glacier on Saturdays, however, and Timothy said he doesn’t know what that means for visitors. 

But on Monday, the people coming off the buses were enchanted by the glacier, like Basilia Quintero from Mexico. She was a little overcome by the view — and the cold weather — but she said not even her imagination prepared her for the glacier.  

“The things that I’m seeing today—Sorry, I have the mouth frozen,” she said. “Not even in my dreams.”

Juneau is expected to see around 1.65 million passengers come off ships between now and late October when the season ends. The next ship, the Carnival Spirit, will arrive on Friday. 

Safety cameras along the Juneau Seawalk, a covered bus stop in the Mendenhall Valley and public Wi-Fi downtown are some of the new projects that could be funded by the fees paid by cruise ship passengers this year. 

Every season, the City and Borough of Juneau collects a $5 fee from each cruise ship passenger who comes into port. That money is pooled together and can go toward paying for projects in Juneau that serve visitors or ease tourism impacts on locals. 

This year, the city expects to generate about $21.5 million in revenue from the 1.65 million passengers anticipated to visit Juneau. 

The money helps fund basic city services like emergency response support and a crossing guard program, but it also helps pay for new projects. The city released a list of projects last week that were recommended by both city officials and Juneau residents. The city is taking public comments on the recommendations until May 7. 

Typically, the projects funded by the fees are downtown near the waterfront. Other parts of town, like the Mendenhall Valley near the glacier, can get projects funded, too, but they need to be connected to the visitor industry. 

That’s because in 2019 the city made a settlement agreement with Cruise Lines International Association Alaska, which put limits on how the city uses the funds were put into place, and some projects require approval by the tourism industry. 

Other potential projects include a funding boost for public transit, street cleanup and repair and the electrification of city docks.

People can submit comments to the city’s visitor industry director at alexandra.pierce@juneau.gov or by visiting the Marine Passenger Fee Program website.

The first cruise ship of the 2025 tourism season, the Norwegian Bliss, is set to sail into Gastineau Channel and arrive in downtown Juneau Monday afternoon. 

The season kicks off as the Trump Administration’s tariffs shake the global economy and federal firings leave dozens of residents in Juneau without jobs.

Juneau’s Tourism Director Alix Pierce said that puts the city’s tourism industry in a state of uncertainty. 

“We have an economy that’s in a different place than it was last year, a lot of our fellow residents, our friends and colleagues, lost jobs that they thought were long-term career-type jobs in our community,” she said. “I think it’s a bit of a wait and see in terms of how it impacts the number of visitors that we have.”

For the past two seasons, the capital city has seen more cruise passengers visit than ever before — about 1.7 million passengers visited last year. 

Pierce said this year is expected to yield a similar number, but it’s unclear if the sour relationship between the U.S. and Canada might impact people’s willingness to travel, and if the new tariffs could dampen spending. According to the most recent data, cruise ship passengers spent $320 million in Juneau in 2023.

The Mendenhall Glacier is Juneau’s most popular tourist attraction, drawing more than 1 million people last year. There’s been staffing uncertainty at the glacier’s visitor center since widespread federal firings in February left it with just one Forest Service employee. 

As Monday approaches, the U.S. Forest Service released a plan to use existing employees from its Juneau offices to fill vacant positions. They’ll be working alongside employees from partner organizations that have had a presence at the glacier previously. 

Pierce said having the visitor center up and operating is critical to the industry and local residents.

“Obviously a lot of small businesses rely on the glacier as their income source. We have nonprofits that operate out there and receive a lot of their funding through the visitors out there,” she said. “We’re concerned about it as a public entity that has a major economic impact on our community.”

Tension surrounding cruise ship tourism and its growth persists in Juneau. Last week, the Assembly voted to approve a tidelands lease for a fifth cruise ship dock in downtown Juneau. That same day, local advocates filed a ballot petition to put in place harder limits on tourism’s growth.

Once the season begins, about one to three ships will come to Juneau per week before ramping up to three to five ships per day by mid-May. Ships will continue to arrive almost every day until their numbers dwindle in October. The season ends Oct. 14.