The final cruise ship of the 2012 season left Juneau Wednesday night taking with it the last of an estimated 920,000 visitors to disembark at Juneau’s port.
John Binkley president of Alaska Cruise Association said in a phone interview that 2012 cruise season went well.
“There were more ships and more passengers visiting Alaska on cruise ships this year,” Binkley said. “We appreciate all they spent.”
And although Juneau experienced record-breaking cold and rainy weather this summer, Brinkley did not see that having a big affect on visitor numbers.
“Most cruise travelers plan trips well in advance,” he explained. “Weather [will} affect how much passengers spend in port and also flight seeing and helicopter tours. There is some disappointment to have that number of people and not get them out on tours, the high-end high dollar attractions.”
Binkley said he didn’t think visitors would let the weather skew their stories when they got back home. The satisfaction rate in Alaska is fairly high, he said, and weather varies around the state.
Binkley anticipates 2013 to be better than 2012 with passenger counts expected to hit a million. He said this increase in business will be driven by an additional cruise ship scheduled to travel Alaska waters, through Southeast and across the Gulf of Alaska. The cruise industry has set its 2013 schedule and is now finalizing 2014 schedules, typically released in February or March.
Around 920,000 cruise passengers crossed the dock in Juneau, Carl Uchytil City and Borough of Juneau Docks and Harbors port director, said. This number was close to the cruise industry’s pre-season estimate of 930,000.
A recent McDowell Group study on cruise industry impacts estimates per passenger spending of about $200 per passenger for a total of $180 million spent in Juneau over the summer.
“About a quarter of all sales tax collected” in Juneau, Uchytil said.
The cruise industry is important for CBJ’s coffers as well as job creation, Uchytil said. About 2,700 workers are employed due to cruise ships in town, he said.
On top of consumer spending, passengers also add to Juneau development through marine passenger fees, $13 a head. The result is about $12 million total for port development and to offset some of the additional burden of welcoming to town a million guests.
A part of the marine passenger fees built Juneau’s new visitor center, port customs building and a new Welcome to Juneau sign.
“The visitors center has been a huge success,” Uchytil said. “People seem to like its funky lines and the colors. I think the artwork turned out well to support it.”
People also said Juneau’s new welcome sign went over well with visitors and locals alike, Uchytil said. He told a story about a wedding party that asked the workers erecting the new sign to step out of the way so they could get a picture beside it.
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempirecom.
Comments (11)
Add commentTaxes
“About a quarter of all sales tax collected” in Juneau, Uchytil said.
Rather than saddle Juneau residents with paying a 1% tax year-around, make it a 3% seasonal tax, but only during cruise season, and drop our base tax to 3%. If that were the case now, starting today our sales tax would be 3% until next May when it went up to 6%.
And find a way to tax the tours sold onboard the ships. And of course no sales tax on food, residential energy, etc.
The cruise lines exploit their passengers at every opportunity, as Binckley makes clear. We should be doing the same through our tax policy.
Lat, your desire to tax our
Lat, your desire to tax our visitors into extinction is disturbing.
Get real, akbrd
Increasing the sales tax that tourists pay by 1% (from the current 5% to 6%) is hardly going to make them extinct.
You're obviously drinking the koolaid served up by the cruise industry.
Tax collection costs
Just wondering, there has been a lot of tax changes being bandied about. No tax cap. Cap this but not that. Tax x for winter, tax y for summer. No tax on food, but tax these edibles. Sounds really fun on blog bites. But in reality, does anyone know just how much such subejective changes would cost? There is increased enforcement costs? There is the increased time to process payments, need to make sure nothing missed on filings. Increased education for retailers and enforcement. Additional staff will be needed to interpret code and enforce especially at first. Then there would be the lawsuit costs, and there will be suits by those who feel discriminated against. Tourists and Twinkie fans come to mind.
I will be voting against the 1% this time around. I do think there needs to be some changes, and a lot of discussion. But tax is not meant to penalize one section of the population, that is what fines are for.
kayak
You make it sound like collecting sales taxes is just so complicated and bothersome that it's not worth the trouble. Please!
Other communities have instituted seasonal taxes for decades. It's not rocket science. We're not penalizing any one segment of the population - remember, we'd have to pay the seasonal tax too. If we levied the sales tax only on visitors, that might be different.
Visitors are already paying
Visitors are already paying more than their fare share of taxes here, with the vast majority of them never using the services their taxes are paying for. And why would YOU want to pay a higher sales tax at any time of the year? A seasonal tax increase is going to hit everybody, not just visitors. We don't have a tax revenue issue anyway. We have a spending problem. Raising taxes only gives the spendthrifts more money to play with.
Seasonal tax
The Kenai burrow uses a seasonal tax and it works just fine. Actually Lat58's tax proposal makes sense. In fact it would work better here than the Kenai.
Woo-Hoo!
Time to go back downtown!
The Kenai burrow, orionsbow1....
Did everyone else read it as borough too?
Hmmmm
And Seattle should charge a additional tax on goods shipped out of their port because only Alaskans will pay it and it will benefit the people of Seattle. Oh wait Alaska thought that was unfair and fought it but it's for Ak to gouge others.
Be carefull with the idea that taxing non-residents is without pain. We rely on those non-residents an awful lot.
http://www.alaskajournal.com/Alaska-Journal-of-Commerce/March-2007/Conta...
Well said, Concerned.
Well said, Concerned.