This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Alexandra Pierce’s name.
When large-deck cruising returns to Juneau for the 2022 season, current City and Borough of Juneau employee Alexandra Pierce will be on deck to help manage the season as the city’s new tourism manager.
In July, members of the city Assembly agreed to move forward with the process of seeking a full-time tourism manager — a suggestion that came from the mayor’s Visitor Industry Task Force.
On Monday, city officials named Pierce to the job in a late afternoon news release.
According to the release, Pierce will report to City Manager Rorie Watt and will be “responsible for tourism planning, management, industry relations and internal tourism coordination.”
[Wintry weather coincides with busy travel days]
“These are hard issues and Alexandra has the smarts, professional experience, and personal skills necessary for success,” Watt said in the news release.
Pierce, who is currently the Planning Manager for CBJ’s Community Development Department, is no stranger to tourism-related duties.
She served as staff to the Visitor Industry Task Force and maintains relationships with community tourism, economic development, and business organizations.
She’s also managing the city’s current survey about tourism, which seeks to gauge how residents felt about the 2019 cruise ship season, which was the most recent typical season before COVID-19 paused all travel last summer and significantly shortened this season. The idea of the survey originated from the Visitor Industry Task Force, Pierce told the Empire in late September.
“Hiring a Tourism Manager and beginning to consolidate how CBJ deals with tourism is a main recommendation of the Visitor Industry Task Force. We’ve obviously been derailed by COVID-19, but with a likely robust cruise ship visitation in 2022, we need to make progress on those issues.”
According to the release, she will step into the role in late December.
• Contact reporter Dana Zigmund at dana.zigmund@juneauempire.com or 907-308-4891.
