By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
With Sitka’s largest ever tourist season underway, a consultant visited town earlier this month and suggested possible improvements to visitors’ experiences.
Representing an organization called the Destination Development Association, Roger Brooks travels the globe assessing popular tourism sites and reporting his findings to the locals.
Brooks was in Sitka under a contract with the city tourism bureau Visit Sitka, and delivered his report August 12 at a public meeting in Allen Auditorium on the SFAC campus. He specified that he views the town through the lens of an independent traveler.
“We look at Sitka – is this the place we want to live, retire, raise a family, is it a place we would want to come and start a business or move a business or just work here? The entire focus of this whole thing is what else can be done locally to make Sitka an even better, stronger, more desirable destination,” he said in his presentation.
Brooks emphasized the importance of navigational signs and accessibility. His first suggestion was the installation of a crosswalk in the 200 block of Lake Street, near the Aspen Hotel.
“Sitka is a walkable town and from almost all your hotels you can easily walk downtown, but if you come out of (the Aspen) Hotel and try to get across the street, there’s no crosswalk and you have to walk all the way down to the intersection… You really need to get a crosswalk to make it easier, because the last thing people want is to walk out of their hotel room and start panicking over how to get across the street,” he said.*
He was complimentary of the pedestrianization of Lincoln Street on high volume cruise ship days, and suggested widening sidewalks in the downtown area.
“You could make this about people and if you double the width of your sidewalks, you could have sidewalk dining out there, you could have more room for those (shop) displays, benches, pots, flowers and best of all – people… Make downtown about people not cars, remove parallel parking and double the width of your sidewalks,” Brooks recommended.
Additionally, the town could benefit from more outdoor seating, he said.
While he frequently commented on the beauty of Sitka and its surroundings, he joked that the range of building colors is limited and drab.
He said, the Stereo North “building looks like it’s stuck in 1974 and it’s such a prominent building… Why does just about every building in Sitka have to be gray, brown or beige? On a gray, cloudy day you can’t even tell the difference between the buildings and the sky.”
He praised the murals on the Market Center building and the Crescent Harbor Park tennis and basketball courts.
Another common theme of his presentation was the need for more detailed and informative signs around town.
At the Sea Mountain Golf Course, he said, “there’s no information, none, they have this huge leaderboard here and there’s no information there… We couldn’t even tell if it was really open when we were there.”
While he and his staff were in town for a week they rented a vehicle and drove to both ends of the road network. They had trouble finding the Alaska Raptor Center and the Fortress of the Bear on Sawmill Creek Road.
“We drove by both the Raptor Center and Fortress of the Bear twice because their signs are set way off – they are used to tour buses bringing everybody there,” Brooks said. “What about the rest of us?... It will increase visitor spending; studies have shown that way-finding will increase visitor spending by 18 to 22 percent and, you know what, that’s the benefit of tourism, bringing more cash into Sitka.”
He concluded: “You really need a vehicular way-finding system. It creates a better visitor experience.”
While in Sitka, he said, he saw the Fort Rousseau State Historical Site (the Japonski Island causeway) on his map and hoped to visit, but was confused when his navigation app instructed him to cross the airport runway.
The World War II military installation is accessible only by sea, and federal aviation security regulations prevent access through the airport property.
The idea of adding way-finding signs for non-cruise ship visitors caught the attention of Visit Sitka director Laurie Booyse.
“He came in as someone who has no prior knowledge and he comes and he looks at the community as an independent traveler,” Booyse told the Sentinel. “So he is not coming in looking at the community like a cruise ship person. And it’s really easy to miss those kinds of things in your own community. And so I thought it was really interesting that as someone who didn’t know where he was going – even though we only have 14 miles of road – he still had trouble with certain things. So the idea of signage for people who are driving honestly makes perfect sense to me.”
Brooks’ suggestion of more aesthetically pleasing storefronts stood out to Booyse, too.
“I also loved the reminder of how important storefronts are, how important it is that things look inviting and cared for,” she said. “And that there’s so much more that could be done with some of our storefronts, not only along Lincoln Street, but also maybe along Seward Street or down Katlian – and it’s not just for the visitors. I mean, as a local don’t you want your town to feel like it wants you there?”
The fee for the visit by Brooks and his team was $25,000, funded by the transient lodging tax via Visit Sitka, Booyse noted.
Some discussion regarding Brook’s presentation has taken place online, with some defending his comments and others criticizing them.
Booyse said, “We’ve heard some, a little bit of grousing from people, of course, on (the Facebook page, Sitka) Chatters about, ‘Why are you paying someone to come in and tell you this stuff?’”
Her response: “Because when you are in it, you’re too close to it.”
Brooks, she said, “gave us very specific, inexpensive ways to make very quick changes that will make a big impact.”
Brooks also wished to see more signage related to Sitka’s fisheries and hatcheries and suggested placing trail maps and visitor guides at trailheads.
He was complimentary about the newly constructed Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal, but said the highlight of the trip for him was a walk through Sitka National Historical Park.
“We waited until the crowd subsided and I’ve got to tell you, this was the number one highlight for us in Sitka,” he said.
Beyond the park, Brooks didn’t hike around Sitka, he said.
Visit Sitka aims its marketing toward independent travelers rather than cruise tourists, Booyse added.
“We want to get our cruise visitors to come back as independent travelers, so they spend more time here and, honestly, they infuse more cash into our community,” she said.
More information about Destination Development Association and its resources is available at https://www.destinationdevelopment.org/.
*There was previously an crosswalk at the intersection of Lake Street and Etolin Way, but it was removed, Department of Transportation spokesman Sam Dapcevich said today.
“In 2016, we considered a request from the city to add it back, but our traffic manual advises not to divert pedestrian traffic from a nearby signalized intersection,” Dapcevich told the Sentinel. “The Etolin intersection with Lake is too close to the signal. And the Seward-Lake intersection is also too close.”
