Cruise aficionados looking to experience Alaska’s capital, Juneau, may have to vie for permission to disembark and step foot on land, under a new agreement between the city and major cruise lines that sail there.
The agreement between Juneau and Cruise Lines International Association in Alaska (CLIA), finalized last week, seeks to limit the number of daily cruise passengers who can arrive in Juneau to 16,000 on Sundays through Fridays, and to 12,000 on Saturdays, effective in 2026.
The measure intends to limit the congestion and wear and tear tourists can cause a city. Visitors to Juneau skyrocketed to a record 1.6 million last year, after the pandemic depressed numbers for two years. Other popular cities have taken similar measures to limit tourists and their effect on daily life for residents. For example, Venice, Italy, in April became the first city in the world to charge day-trippers a fee just to enter on peak days.
Alaska’s new agreement is designed to cap levels of visitors to roughly where they are now.
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“The cruise industry is vital to our local economy, and we need to improve our infrastructure and grow our tour capacity to create a great guest experience and reduce impacts on residents,” Juneau Visitor Industry director Alexandra Pierce said in a statement Tuesday. “With this agreement, we are committing to a cap to manage our busiest days and to meet annually to ensure that our visitor numbers remain sustainable.”
In Alaska, residents have complained that record numbers of visitors contribute to bad traffic and increase noise pollution when they visit glaciers by helicopter. On the other hand, many local businesses rely on the cruise industry and the steady flow of visitors it provides, the city of Juneau acknowledged in a statement.
A cruise ship departs from downtown Juneau, on June 7, 2023, along the Gastineau Channel, in Alaska.
Becky Bohrer / AP
Cruise seasons have also been extended from early April to late October, offering year-round residents little reprieve from tourists’ presence.
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Under a separate agreement, only five large ships are permitted a day during the current cruise season.
Pierce said other projects in the works will also likely diminish the impact tourists have on the city. They include installing a gondola at the city’s ski area, updating its downtown sea walk and expanding capacity for visitors at the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area.
City leaders are “trying to balance the needs of our residents, the needs of our economy, the needs of future opportunities for people to stay in our community,” she said.
The agreement has its skeptics, though. Cruise industry critic Karla Hart says the new measure isn’t sufficient to curb unsustainable levels of tourism. “It feels like we’re just getting led along again, and expansion will continue and more time will pass,” she said, according to the Associated Press.
Hart is behind a local ballot proposal that would ban ships of at least 250 passengers from stopping in Juneau on Saturdays or on July 4.
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—The Associated Press contributed to this report
Megan Cerullo
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
A new home under construction in Potter Valley in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
This June, two very different offers reach Alaska families, and both amount to the same thing: $10,000. The difference is everything.
Bill Walker, running for governor, would hand every eligible Alaskan a one-time $10,000 check and then end the Permanent Fund dividend for good. Ask one question: Where does his $10,000 come from?
It comes from the Permanent Fund, the people’s own money and the savings Alaskans built for their children. Walker would spend that endowment once to pay Alaskans to give up the yearly dividend forever.
Think about what that does. It cancels the annual check that gives a family a reason to keep an Alaska address and replaces it with a single payout. You hand people their own savings, call it a gift and cut the tie that held them here in the same motion. It is the oldest mistake in governing money: raid what you have saved to buy a moment’s applause and call the spending generosity.
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A plan that spends the people’s savings to send the people away is not bold. It is foolish.
Now consider the other $10,000. Through Alaska Housing Finance Corp., the state offers families up to $10,000 to build a new, energy-efficient home. AHFC raids nothing. It earns its own way. Over the years, it has returned more than $2 billion to the state treasury, and it spends some of that income the way any good business does: to win a customer.
Here, the customer is an Alaskan who wants to own a home, put down roots and stay.
That is the oldest sound move in business: Invest a little of what you earn to bring in someone who stays. The homeowner remains, the community gains a family and the corporation keeps earning. The money spent comes back. A plan that puts earnings to work to bring people home is not charity. It is clever.
Same amount. Opposite source. Opposite wisdom. One spends savings; the other spends earnings. One pays Alaskans to leave; the other pays them to stay. One empties the state; the other fills it.
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This Homeownership Month, the choice is the size of a single check, and the whole question is where the check comes from and what it asks of you. Ten thousand dollars of your own fund, to wave you goodbye. Or $10,000, earned and reinvested, to help you stay and build.
Evan Swensen is the publisher of Publication Consultants in Anchorage and the author of “What’s the Money For: A Permanent Fund Mortgage Proposal.”
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