Leach Offers AdviceOn Tourism PracticesBy

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Created on Thursday, 13 February 2025 16:56

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By SHANNON HAUGLAND

Sentinel Staff Writer

    Speaking as a member of a Southeast Conference panel on tourism, Sitka City Administrator John Leach said that when it comes to cruise ship policies, the best path forward is working on collaborative agreements that work for both industry and community.

    “If we want to truly manage tourism sustainably, we need solutions that are flexible, adaptable and community-driven, not ones that create legal uncertainties or economic instability,” Leach said at the Southeast Conference 2025 Mid-Session Summit being held in Juneau.

    Others on the tourism panel were Alix Pierce, City and Borough of Juneau visitor industry director; Susan Bell, vice president, strategic initiatives, Huna Totem Corp.; and Renee Limoge Reeve, vice president, government and community relations, Cruise Lines International Association.

Western Anchorage is pictured in 2024. (Sentinel File Photo)

    Southeast Conference, an association of regional government and business leaders, holds twice-yearly meetings to discuss regional economic issues. The annual meeting will be Sept. 16-18 in Sitka.

    Leach focused his talk around Sitka’s response to its “cruise boom” – the surge in tourism that started in 2022, two years after COVID shut down the industry and the expanded use of Sitka’s first deep water cruise ship dock.

    In preparation for 2022, the city adopted a short-term tourism plan. Later, the Assembly created a one-year Tourism Task Force to work on longer-term planning. During 2024 the city created a permanent city tourism commission, which had its first meeting last week.

    “We addressed one of the biggest concerns — daily visitor volume — by negotiating a memorandum of understanding with Sitka Dock Company to keep cruise passenger numbers below 7,000 per day,” he said.

    This is the first year the MOU will be in effect. Leach said the agreement between the city and the cruise terminal, which was pursued at the direction of the Sitka Tourism Task Force and the Assembly, is a better strategy than a ballot initiative. He did not mention specifically the initiative campaign underway in Sitka calling for a special election on cruise tourism limits, but said that in general working with industry is a better strategy.

    “Ballot measures can create rigid policies that lack flexibility and adaptability. They also have a way of dividing communities rather than fostering collaboration,” he said. 

    The intent of the MOU is to “balance economic opportunity with the realities of what Sitka can handle ...” and will allow the city to adapt to changes in the industry, Leach said.

    He said the growth in tourism the past two years has brought benefits to Sitka such as increased sales tax to fund school maintenance, pay for the new Parks and Rec program, and expand public swim times at the city pool. He said the boom in cruise tourism also created employment and business opportunities.

    Proponents of the ballot initiative point to downtown traffic congestion, bus traffic, overcrowding of community outdoor recreation areas and changes to Sitka’s small-town character, among other negative effects. The number of daily visitors in the petition ordinance would be limited to 4,500 and annual visitors at 300,000. The ordinance would create at least one quiet day (no large ships), and require permits for cruise companies in advance of the season.

    If the petition leads to an election and voter approval of the proposed cruise ship limits, legal challenges “are highly likely,” Leach said.

     “Other communities have faced costly litigation when attempting to limit tourism through ballot initiatives, and Sitka could face a similar battle if this measure passes,” he said.

    Leach said the community discussion held around cruise ship tourism has been valuable and underscores the need for “continued engagement, data-driven decisionmaking and industry collaboration.”

    “At the end of the day, Sitka’s future should be shaped by open communication, smart policy, and balanced growth,” he said in conclusion. “Tourism will always be part of our community, but it should be an industry that enhances Sitka — not one that defines it.”

    Before COVID shut down the industry for a year in 2020, Sitka’s record year for cruise visitors was about 290,000 in 2008. Visitors in the last three years went from 385,000 in 2022, to 585,000 in 2023 to 590,000 in 2024.

    Pierce, the Juneau representative on the tourism panel, said tourism has increased since the pandemic, but the outlook is that it will level off for the next few years.

“We can take that time to catch up and create a balanced industry, a predictable stable industry for generations to come,” she said. She added that Juneau residents currently favor managing and mitigating impacts, and the city is reconstituting a Tourism Task Force to oversee those goals.

“We’re continuing to collaborate throughout the region with our partners, with the other ports in the region, with the cruise lines, with our major tour operators, to look at what Alaska looks like over the long term, and what a stable market generations from now might look (in the future),” she said.

She stressed the importance of communication and information.

    “We struggle to communicate with residents,” she said. Referring to a consultant survey of opinions on the two new docks proposed for downtown Juneau, Pierce said she was surprised to see the number of people who said they need more information.

    “We feel like we’ve done a lot of work on trying to educate people, and in reading the public comments last night from a public meeting we had with Huna Totem (one of the new dock owners) a few weeks ago, there’s still a lot of misinformation,” she said.

    Pierce said getting the right information to residents would promote better, more informed public discourse on tourism, rather than answering questions on whether the community can limit cruise passengers (“we can’t,” she said) or whether Juneau can spend cruise ship passenger fees on street paving in the Mendenhall Valley (“we can’t, it’s not legal”).

    She said the takeaway she would leave with the audience is that tourism is an important economic sector in Southeast.

    “In order to make it work we need to be having the right conversations with our residents and people need to have a nuanced understanding and a more elevated discussion about what this industry means to our economy and also how tourism can support economic diversification with new industries and additional economic opportunities,” she said. “We have a bright spot here in our region, and we need to do the best to nurture it so that the current boom that we’re experiencing doesn’t turn into a bust.”

    Reeve, the CLIA representative, stressed the importance of building partnerships between the cruise lines and the communities, and building positive relationships with residents.

    “How do we get (positive stories about tourism) down to the average person who doesn’t track this day in and day out,” Reeve said. “For a lot of people maybe tourism isn’t right here, but it is for business owners in this town and across Alaska who rely on tourism. ... I have to do a better job at keeping that perspective.”

    Reeve said it would be in the best interest of industry to make sure the public hears positive stories about cruise tourism, “and to make it a positive experience for all starting with residents and then the visitors.”

    “I’ve said it before, our member lines don’t want to bring people to a place that they don’t feel welcome,” she said. “Southeast Alaska still makes our visitors feel welcome. And so how do we mitigate the challenges? How do we work together and keep that communication open?

    “And whether it’s Tourism Best Management Practices program, or the (Juneau) Tourism Task Force reboot, the MOAs, the MOUs, we want to ensure that dialog and have the hard conversations with the communities, and we’re showing up for those. But again, it’s about getting that message out.”

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