Alaska’s cruise conundrum

How Juneau is managing

As port cities across Alaska — and the globe — wrestle with how to deal with an abundance of cruise tourism, Juneau’s cruise management plan could serve as a test for how to limit visitors while still reaping benefits from them.

Marilyn Macallair, a market analyst and co-author of the Phocuswright U.S. Cruise Market Report 2023-2027, said other port towns, especially small ones struggling with overtourism, can study how Juneau’s limits work for its economy and decide if a similar solution would work for them.

“They’re going to be the example that says, ‘OK, this is how Juneau did it. … If it worked for Juneau, let us try it,’” she said.

Concern about overtourism is a major threat to the cruise industry as popular port cities, either through their residents or city leaders, look to limit or push cruise ship traffic away from their city centers. 

But instead of pushing cruise lines out of city centers, as Barcelona and Venice have done, leaders in Alaska’s busiest ports of call have thus far looked to strike a balance that supports cruise tourism. The goal is to recognize it as an economic engine that powers their communities but not let it make their towns difficult places in which to live. 

Members of the industry are also looking to open more places in Alaska for ships to visit, spreading out both the visitor volume and the economic benefit.

“We have to find a way to make it work because that’s where guests want to go, and that’s where we want to take them,” said David Herrera, president of Norwegian Cruise Line, when asked about overtourism at Seatrade Cruise Global in April. “Whether it’s Alaska or whether it’s Europe, we’ve just got to figure it out, and I think we’re all motivated to do that.”

Most Alaska cruise itineraries originate in Seattle or Vancouver and sail either the Inside Passage of southeast Alaska or longer, typically open-jaw cruises across the Gulf of Alaska that go as far as Anchorage via ports in Whittier and Seward. The great majority of sailings visit the Inside Passage, home to marquee ports including Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan, and this is the area where the overtourism concerns are most prominent. 

Alaska has long been a major cruise destination, but its popularity surged coming out of its pandemic closure. Cruise lines fueled that demand with more and better hardware and increased marketing. Carnival Corp., for instance, bumped up its Alaska advertising efforts with new campaigns this year. Also, its Princess Cruises brand will add an eighth ship to its 2026 Alaska lineup, the new Sun Princess.

Seeing increased demand, Royal Caribbean Group boosted Alaska capacity by 6% this year over 2023 and sent some of its newest ships to the destination this year, such as the Celebrity Edge and the Silver Nova, Silversea Cruises’ first Nova-class ship.

“It’s a gift to our country,” Jason Liberty, CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, said of Alaska. “The only way you can see it reasonably, unless you really get into physical hiking and sea planes, is by cruise ship.”

Watching Juneau

When I asked how big of a deal cruising is to Sitka, Amy Ainslie, the city and borough’s planning and community development director, laughed. “Sorry,” she said. “Cruising is a huge deal.”

Tourism matters deeply to people in that Inside Passage community, but it is also polarizing, Ainslie said, calling tourism, the lion’s share of which comes from cruises, a “hot” issue.

Cruising to Sitka has changed rapidly in recent years. The cruise passenger record of 280,000, set in 2008, held for many years. But in 2021, the privately owned Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal announced an expansion to larger berths, with Royal Caribbean as a minority owner. The result was the two-ship terminal being able to handle more traffic, including two ships at a time carrying more than 4,000 passengers each.

Traffic quickly climbed: In 2022, 383,000 cruisers visited Sitka. The next year, 585,000 passengers visited, more than double the 2008 record. With as many as 10,000 cruisers in town at a time, Sitka saw the cruise population outnumber its 8,500 residents, Ainslie said. Problems included buses stressing downtown traffic flow and impeded internet service and cell reception. 

Now, Sitka seems to be following Juneau’s lead. As the city and borough look for ways to manage tourism, one approach is to limit cruise passengers to reduce peak visitation days. The local governing body is expected to consider limiting vessels with more than 4,000 passengers to one ship per day and no more than four calls per week. The body is also expected to consider one or two weekly and regular “quiet days” with fewer than 1,000 passengers. Another item is a daily cap of 5,000 to 7,000 cruise passengers, which the Sitka Assembly is expected to vote on this month.

As in Juneau, some residents in Sitka want even lower numbers. Residents there tried three times in the past year to propose their own cruise passenger limits, although none of the attempts have survived the city’s legal review process.

Finding a balanced approach

Cruise lines and CLIA are actively working with ports like Juneau to strike a balance that works for both sides. 

For some Alaska port towns, an issue that has popped up since the pandemic restart is that cruise lines began stretching the season, starting earlier in April and ending later in October.

In Sitka, the longer season puts pressure on the community to accommodate cruisers when there isn’t enough labor to fill jobs like tour guides, shuttle drivers or in shops. Those seasonal positions are typically filled by students on summer break, Ainslie said.

Norwegian was one of the lines that had extended its season. In 2023, it began offering cruises as early as April 15 and ending with an Oct. 22 departure. But after hearing from impacted communities, it backed off of that for 2026. 

That’s just one of the ways cruise lines are trying to help strike a balance, said Renee Limoge Reeve, vice president of government and community relations for CLIA in Alaska.

“This was a direct result of the feedback received from the local government and community related to the challenges of the longer season,” she said, “In the end, local stakeholders, the community and the industry still have to come together to make everything work, so best just to start with productive dialogue.”

Cruise lines are also trying to be good partners in Alaska. After an unprecedented season of glacial flooding from Suicide Basin and Mendenhall Glacier, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings gave $50,000 in aid to Juneau. Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Group have also made contributions, CLIA said.

In Juneau, where internet connectivity is poor on busy port days, Royal Caribbean Group will try a program to offer free Starlink high-speed, low-latency internet within the community. The company also had internet terminals installed in Sitka to provide relief amid wide-spread internet outages caused by an undersea broken fiber optic cable.

Cruise ships wanted

While some ports are curbing cruise tourism, others are eager for more. 

Russell Dick, CEO of the Huna Totem Corp., said that when he hears the industry saying it may reduce service or pull ships from Alaska due to community pushback, “I’m going, that’s not OK, because that’s not the way everybody in southeast Alaska feels.” 

Huna Totem began developing port facilities 20 years ago with the opening of the 32,000-acre Icy Strait Point, an Inside Passage port that replaces cityscape with wilderness and offers tours such as a wildlife and bear search and a milelong zipline.

Other Huna Totem ports of call have recently opened, including a double-berth pier and terminal building in Whittier developed in partnership with Norwegian that was scheduled to open on Sept. 11. Port Klawock, a tender port in the Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area northwest of Ketchikan, opened this summer. It can accommodate mostly smaller, luxury ships but is expected to be expanded over the years.

“We just need to do a better job of convincing the cruise lines that people come to Alaska not only to see Juneau,” Dick said. “Juneau doesn’t necessarily have to be on an itinerary, right? You can get the same value by going to other ports.”

Robert Morgenstern, Carnival Corp.’s senior vice president of Alaska operations, who began his tourism career as an Alaska guide, said the company can work with the caps in Juneau, as some days have room for more passengers, giving the company wiggle room for growth. 

But, he said, “At some point people are going to have to figure out alternatives to Juneau. That’s just basic math.” And those alternatives need to be attractive places people want to go with activities they want to do, he said.

Morgenstern said he expects caps to lead the industry to develop longer Alaska itineraries, something Carnival brands have had success with, especially among passengers returning to Alaska and wanting to visit places they hadn’t seen the first time.

Meanwhile, Carnival is looking for alternative ports, saying many communities would be happy for the economic impact cruises bring. 

“The reality in a lot of these Alaska communities is there’s not a lot of economic good news,” he said. “Timber is long dead, fishing is struggling and under pressure, and tourism is a bright spot.” 

The port city of Prince Rupert, in British Columbia’s Inside Passage, is working on developing more shore excursions to support off-ship experiences, Morgenstern said. 

Another place on Carnival’s radar is Wrangell, a port between Juneau and Ketchikan that has hosted some Holland America and Princess calls. 

Tourism leaders in South Central Alaska also say they can handle more cruise traffic. Cross-gulf cruise passenger volume has grown about 15% over 2019, to about 450,000 cruise passengers. 

Julie Saupe, CEO of Visit Anchorage, said the region and Anchorage are large enough that they don’t feel the impact of high-traffic cruise days quite like a small community would. That’s in part because guests are dispersed between two ports, Whittier and Seward, and because travelers typically head to and from the ships via airports or pre- and post-visits across a large area. 

It’s possible lines will offer more cross-gulf itineraries if anti-cruise sentiment pervades in communities along southeast Alaska, Saupe said. But she doesn’t see those long-term decisions happening yet, noting that a lot of southeast Alaska residents are still very supportive of the cruise industry. 

“It’s controversial down there right now,” she said, “but I think that’s because there are people with strong opinions on both sides of the issue, and that’s why it’s been hard to come to a consensus.”