By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
A stopgap law that would allow for cruise ship travel to Alaska this summer made it through the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent Thursday, fueling hopes for a possible cruise season in late summer.
The Alaska Tourism Restoration Act now heads to the House of Representatives.
The bill exempts cruise sailings between Washington State and Alaska from the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886, which requires foreign flagged ships to make at least one stop in a foreign port, and the Canadian government isn’t allowing large passenger vessels in its ports this summer.
Alaska’s U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan co-sponsored the bill on March 4.
“The Alaska delegation has been working every angle to help find a path forward for struggling Alaskans who rely on the tourism industry,” Murkowski said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Senate passage of my legislation sends a strong signal that we will not stand idly by, withering on the vine, until another country catches up to our level of readiness. This shows that the health and restoration of our economy cannot be held up by Canada, especially since Alaska has led with vaccinations in the country and our communities are ready to welcome visitors back.”
If the bill passes, the law will sunset on Feb. 28, 2022.
The bill has the potential to return significant amounts of economic activity to the state, Visit Sitka Director Laurie Booyse told the Sentinel today.
“When Sen. Sullivan was in town the other week, he had talked about this and it’s a really big deal because the PVSA has been in place for over a 100 years, so to be able to modify something like that, that is so entrenched in the industry, is a huge difference… It does allow cruising in Alaska for ships that are not American flagged,” Booyse said. “It’s very exciting. It says a lot about the Senate that they have recognized what’s happening in Alaska and the importance of being able to bring this really big economic driver back to our state.”
While the bill moves through the legislative branch, the Centers for Disease Control’s work on cruise resumption also is in progress, and on May 5 it released guidance for conditional cruise sailings.
“We’re continuing to work around the clock with CDC leaders to finally issue workable guidance that allows the cruise lines and coastal communities to safely welcome visitors again. Given the CDC’s much-awaited loosening of mask guidelines today for vaccinated Americans, I am hopeful we will see progress on this front as well,” Sullivan said before the Senate.
Even in the event of an expeditious return of cruise travel, Booyse anticipates a delayed and curtailed tourism season.
“If everything falls in line perfectly, we’re probably talking about the end of July or August,” she said.
With such a tight timeframe, she noted, local businesses might experience difficulties ramping up operations.
“Keep in mind all of our operators and businesses for last summer and this summer, they don’t know whether to hire staff, they don’t know how many people. It’s really a waiting game; our businesses will need those 90 days to get those staff ready to go… Normally our businesses ramp up in April and May and have some time to do some test tours and shake out the problems and difficulties. And they’re not going to have the luxury of that kind of slow development with training,” Booyse said.
She said seems to be pent-up demand for travel to Alaska, but added that it’s unlikely cruise lines would return all at once with full schedules.
“I would not expect them to do their full schedule,” she said. “I would expect that they send up one or two ships and maintain the same itineraries but I certainly would not expect that we’re going to have the full volume of ships in Alaska.”
With Sitka’s rate of full vaccination now over 65 percent, Booyse believes the town is safe.
“Our high vaccination rate makes it really safe,” she said. She added that small cruise lines such as Uncruise and Alaska Dream Cruises plan to require vaccination for crews and passengers.
Alaska’s congressional delegation has approached the issue of cruise travel from multiple angles, requesting that Canada allow passenger ship travel and asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to allow stops in Canada in which passengers do not disembark.
Alaska Rep. Don Young wrote to DHS arguing that cruise ships could make technical stops in a Canadian port.
“There is a strong case to be made that a ‘technical stop,’ which is generally understood to mean a call at a foreign port whereby a vessel clears customs formalities and may take on fuel and stores, but does not disembark passengers, meets the requirements of the PVSA,” Young wrote on Thursday.
Regardless of results, Booyse was glad for congressional action on the matter.
“I’m really proud of our congressional delegation for recognizing this need and for working so hard to modify this century-old law that has limited economic development in Alaska. Ultimately, I don’t see the PVSA being repealed but I’m just really happy and excited that they’ve been working so hard at making this change,” she said.
