The Alaska Travel Industry Association hasn’t released numbers yet regarding how big of an economic impact visitors had in 2023,In particular, the cruise sector definitely has recovered from COVID, which I think has been great. We are still seeing a lot of businesses from that time still trying to earn back to the level that they were at before. But I think people have been really optimistic, especially with the last few seasons that we’ve had.
Juneau has the tourism manager, Alexandra Pierce, and she has worked really closely with community stakeholders to actually try to have a community led effort that really addresses what they want tourism to look like in Juneau, and they’ve actually done some really amazing agreements with the cruise lines.
Then in the wintertime, they’re all independent travelers, because cruising doesn’t really happen in the wintertime. They’re a very important segment and definitely one that the Alaska Travel Industry Association focuses on in order to help them plan and inspire them to choose Alaska as a visitor destination.
It’s been such a success story, and it has grown incrementally year over year, and is an amazing positive experience. They have partnered with Doyon as well Klawock and have now developed a new tender port.