This is a developing story.
Juneau got a record number of cruise ship passengers for a second straight year, with 1,677,935 arriving during the 2024 season that ended Thursday compared to 1,638,902 last year, according to the City and Borough of Juneau’s Docks and Harbors department.
Ships this year were at 104% capacity — meaning some cabins had more than two people staying in them, such as a child with parents — compared to 101% capacity last year, according to Docks and Harbors. Every month of this year’s season between April and October was at or above 100% capacity, compared to last year when it was 96% in May and 98% in September.
This year’s visitor numbers were about in line with expectations, CBJ Tourism Manager Alexandra Pierce said in an interview Friday.
“The season went pretty well operationally,” she said. “Our biggest issue was (lack of) crossing guards downtown and we’re working on a fix for that over the winter. Of course, we also had issues with connectivity — cell phone connectivity — and we’re also we think we’ve resolved that between the city’s Wi-Fi project and the providers adding capacity.”
Hovering over the community during this year’s season was a high-profile debate about the impacts of cruise tourism —· good and bad — due to a ballot proposition seeking to ban cruise ships with capacity for 250 or more passengers on Saturdays and the Fourth of July. The proposition was defeated with 61% of voters opposing it in the Oct. 1 municipal election.
It was also the first year a voluntary five-ship-a-day limit was in effect, essentially serving to keep any single day from being particularly overwhelming. Pierce said so far no cruise companies have told her they don’t intend to continue the agreement next year.
She said she also expects a slight decrease in passengers next year, with 1,625,950 as the current projection, and the hope is to establish a reliably predictable number of annual passengers at about that level in future years.
“If our numbers are predictable we can plan and manage, and try to solve problems rather than bracing for record growth year over year,” she said.
A major unknown, however, was introduced into the discussion at the end of the season when Royal Caribbean Group and Goldbelt Inc. announced a cooperative agreement to build a private two-ship cruise port — along with a recreated historic Tlingit village and shore tour facilities — on Goldbelt land on the shore of west Douglas Island as soon as 2027. That could redirect a large percentage of tourism business away from downtown, lessening both the impacts some residents have expressed opposition to and revenue many businesses say is essential to their existence.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
