“There’s a perception that if a ship is in the channel, all must be OK. “It hurt people more than it helped,” Martinson said. Martinson said she also needed to provide work to dedicated employees she feared she could lose to another employer. What’s more, they are dealing with supply chain disruptions that make it difficult to work. Martinson said the artists have missed the “bread and butter” cruise season and holiday and summer shows. Laura Martinson, the owner of Caribou Crossing downtown, said that the short cruise season put her business in a worse place because of the expense of bringing in inventory, hiring employees and paying for daycare.īut, she said her shop represents over 60 small, Alaskan artists and she wanted to see them survive the year and still be in business when the passengers return. “Even the people who are critical of the industry are beholden to the industry because of the sales tax.” “Take the legs out of the cruise industry and you tank real estate,” Summers said.
Local business owners say city revenues are only part of the picture. “Cruise ship tax revenue and tourism is a big part of our economy,” Rogers said. Rogers said the city lost $10 million in sales tax in 2020 when cruise ships could not sail and many local businesses did not operate. He said that money comes from cruise ship passengers, seasonal employees, independent travelers and locals who have more money in their pockets thanks to seasonal work. “But, it was a complete financial loser at that level.”Īccording to Jeff Rogers, finance director for the City and Borough of Juneau, tourism generates about $10 million in sales tax for the city each year. “Emotionally speaking it felt good,” he said. Summers was more direct about the short cruise season. Still, she says she’s grateful that she’s been able to hang on when many businesses closed or could not operate at all in 2021. “It was lovely but not sustainable,” Hutchinson said, adding that she has worked every day since April to keep balls in the air. When business did resume this year, it was on a much smaller scale. Hutchinson said she took a job at Barlett Regional Hospital, working in the behavioral health department, to make ends meet - a job she kept even as her business started operating again in 2021. She added that she still had to spend money to maintain and insure her fleet of unused vehicles.
Hutchinson said that her business had to send out over $1 million in refunds in 2020 and could not operate any of their eight whale watching boats or 25 buses. “I had to lay off my husband,” Hutchinson said, adding that for the first time, she could not offer summer jobs to her college-age children, who didn’t come home for the summer. In 2020, she had already spent the money to stock up for what she expected to be her best year ever.įor Serene Hutchinson, general manager of Juneau Tours & Whale Watch, it was even more personal. I was worried I would get an ulcer,” she said, explaining that, like most tour businesses, she uses the early deposits to make the investments needed to start the season. Midgi Moore, Juneau Food Tours’ CEO, described the spring of 2020 when she had to withdraw money from retirement savings to refund deposits for people who had pre-booked tours with her company. “I am in survival mode,” Summers told the Empire in a Monday morning phone interview.
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That one-two punch has shuttered some local businesses left many others fighting to survive.īusiness owners shared stories of losing houses, selling business assets, and taking money out of retirement savings to scrape by and hold out for a return to a full season of cruising and the one million-plus passengers that can visit Juneau in a typical year.ĭespite his efforts, he still lost his house.
A short and significantly scaled back 2021 season happened after months of negotiation and an act of Congress, but its shortened length and lighter passenger load meant that Juneau received about 10% of the visitors that would arrive in a typical year. But, while the cruise industry may be big, many of the local businesses that depend on cruise ship passengers are locally owned shops with owners and operators struggling to survive after COVID-19 torpedoed the last two seasons.Īfter a very successful summer in 2019, COVID-19 and the accompanying no sail order completely canceled the 2020 season. Large-deck cruising is big business in Southeast Alaska, especially Juneau.