Alaska is about to begin a bumper cruise season. However, future seasons aren’t looking quite as promising. From 2026, the major Alaskan port of Juneau will begin to place caps on capacity.
In an assembly meeting last week, it was agreed that a cap would be set, but exact numbers aren’t yet known.
Alaska Public Media reported that Juneau’s City Tourism Manager Alix Pierce said: “We do not have a preliminary agreement on an MOA (Memorandum of Agreement) with specific numbers yet but we have agreed to the concept of a daily limit MOA, which is an important step in the right direction.”
Pierce added that cruise lines have known these restrictions were coming: “They (cruise lines) knew this conversation was coming, they knew this was the purpose of the meeting and we had asked them to come ready to discuss daily limits and the issues and challenges around that.”
This action isn’t out of nowhere, with Juneau already setting a limit of five ships per day, however, a set limit for capacity would likely make it difficult for multiple big ships to visit the port at once.
The port is extremely popular, receiving 1.6 million cruise ship passengers in 2023. In comparison, Australia received 1.25 million passengers in total during its previous cruise season. There are a total of 660 cruises heading to South East Alaska this season.
Cruise lines that sail to the destination include Carnival, Holland America, Silversea, Princess, Viking, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Regent Seven Seas and more.
Another port in Alaska, Sitka, has made similar efforts to place capacity limits. They have attempted to limit the number of visitors to 240,000 per year.
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Without Prejudice
This article is very interesting
I have visited Alaska 4 times with various companies
I have seen a port cater with 6 ships in 1 day and yes it was chaotic but the town city was vibrant alive and the local traders seemed to be coping well
The capacity Alaska has been able to build up needs to be shared with other countries…this week a Halifx trader seemed excited at their 106 expected for 23/24 season
I’m from Melbourne Australia and I believe the incredible work and effortand stories of success put in by all players in Alaska be shared with ports across the entire world so all the world gets a “portion of the pie”
The benefits to local communities from the Cruising industry I don’t believe is really understood by Governments and it’s time the success in Alaska is used as a blueprint for nations that really could benefit economicly from an industry that is often neglected as a boom to sagging tourism economies.
Trust my comments could be used to help grow Cruising across the entire globe.
Regards Ken Bell