- A new agreement between Juneau and major cruise lines aims to limit the number of daily cruise passengers from 2026.
- The number of cruise passengers in Juneau exceeded 1.6 million last year, causing tension between businesses and residents because of the increase in traffic.
- The agreement also includes plans to improve infrastructure, such as gondolas, renovate the seaway and increase visitor capacity at popular destinations.
A new agreement The Beach in Alaska The capital city and major cruise lines want to limit the daily number of cruise ship passengers visiting Juneau from 2026, though a prominent cruise industry critic said Tuesday the planned limits do not go far enough.
The agreement reached late last week calls for a daily limit of cruise passengers to 16,000 from Sunday to Friday and 12,000 on Saturdays. However, officials said this does not mean there will be that many people every day.
Cruise passenger numbers have rebounded sharply after two pandemic-hit years, with a record of more than 1.6 million passengers in June last year. This has caused tensions among businesses that rely on cruises On tourism and residents who are fed up with increased traffic, busy routes and the rumble of helicopters carrying tourists to the glaciers.
Cruise seasons have also gotten longer, with the first boat this year arriving in Juneau in early April and the last boat in late October. On busy days in the past, passenger numbers have been about two-thirds of Juneau’s population of about 32,000.
Cruise ships are scheduled to dock in Juneau, Alaska, on June 9, 2023. A new agreement between the Alaskan capital and major cruise lines seeks to limit the daily number of cruise ship passengers visiting Juneau starting in 2026, though a prominent cruise industry critic said Tuesday that the planned limits don’t go far enough. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)
Under a separate agreement signed last year, a limit of five large vessels per day goes into effect for the current season.
Alexandra Pierce, Juneau’s visitor industry director, said Tuesday that the current agreement aims to keep the number of cruise passengers roughly stable, at around 1.6 million.
“The idea is that this agreement gives everybody time to not only see if it’s sustainable, but also build the infrastructure that will help make it more sustainable,” he said.
Pierce said he expects several projects to be completed in the next five years “that will make our current numbers look less impressive.” He cited plans to add a gondola to the city-owned ski area, updates to the downtown Sea Walk and plans to increase visitor capacity at the popular Mendenhall Glacier recreation area.
The agreement, signed by the city manager and key cruise line officials, also provides for annual meetings to “review lessons learned, review and optimize operations for the upcoming season, and align with community and industry parameters, goals, and opportunities.”
Pierce said city leaders are “trying to balance the needs of our residents, the needs of our economy, and the needs of future opportunities for people to remain in our community.”
Carla Hart, a longtime critic of the industry, is skeptical of the new agreement and says it doesn’t do enough to address concerns many residents have that current tourism levels are unsustainable.
“It looks like we’re on the move again, and the expansion will continue and time will go on” and the impacts will continue, he said.
Hart is helping push a proposed local ballot initiative that would create “ship-free Saturdays,” in which no cruise ship with a capacity of at least 250 passengers would be allowed to stop in Juneau on Saturdays or the 4th of July. The signature-review process for the proposed measure is underway. If the measure is certified, it could appear on the October ballot.
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Renee Limonge Reeve, Vice President of the government The executive director and community relations officer for the Cruise Lines International Association Alaska, a trade group, said these initiatives “eliminate the opportunity for collaboration and discussion, and I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement.”
He said the agreements with Juneau are the first such agreements made by the industry in Alaska and underscore the cruise lines’ commitment “to be good partners with the communities we visit.” Juneau and other southeast Alaska communities are popular stops on cruises departing from Seattle or Vancouver. The much smaller community of Sitka is also grappling with the debate over tourism numbers.
Reeve and Pierce also attended a Greater Juneau Chamber of Commerce news conference Tuesday to discuss the agreement.
