Cruise Ship Tourism
Dear Editor: As another spring gets underway, our city’s ongoing investment in cruise ship tourism raises questions for the Sitka community. The most troubling question may be whether we as a community have the foresight and the discipline to set some meaningful boundaries.
Multiple consultations have identified fears over how the benefits and downsides of tourism are being experienced by different parts of the community. These themes have emerged again in the most recent survey of more than 6% of the adult population undertaken in 2022 by Pardee-Rand; 63% of respondents reported that quality of life in Sitka was decreased by the much larger tourist numbers in 2022.
How much does congestion and additional heavy vehicle movement cost Sitka residents and businesses in stress, air pollution, road damage, community cohesion, and town character? How can we weigh the economic benefits and the negative impacts, only some of which can be reduced to a dollar value? Can we distinguish between the benefits of cruise ship tourists and independent/small boat tourists? Is the only way to assess citizen wishes toward tourist numbers at the ballot box?
Those who have signed on to this letter would like to see urgent efforts to quantify and characterize both the positive and negative impacts of opening our ‘‘arms’’ to the multitude of cruise ship customers. We believe the community deserves the opportunity to see and act on this information BEFORE the 2024 season schedule is being finalized in October. We do not believe that Sitkans should wait until 2025 to set some initial boundaries on cruise tourism.
Sincerely,
Janet Berlin, Elizabeth Faulkner,
Auriella Hughes, Margaret Woodlin,
Ken Corson, Beth Caffrey,
Marg Parsons, Rain Van Den Berg,
Jack Navitsky, Kelli Leonard,
Grace Brooks, Kim Hunter,
Brenda Campen, Lisa Sadleir-Hart,
Tom Hart, Cheryl Call,
Penny Brown, Elisabeth Schafer,
Leah Mason, Joel Hanson,
Toby Campbell, Kathleen Kreiss,
Carol Voisin, Kent Barkau,
Bridget Kauffman, Connie Kreiss,
Floyd Tomkins, Galen Paine,
Holly Marban, Barbara Bingham
and Pat Kehoe, Sitka
