Wrangell is one of four Southeast communities selected for a joint U.S. Forest Service and University of Alaska Southeast project to learn more about how the pandemic has affected the tourism industry in the region and what it means for the economy longer term.
The other communities selected for the survey and report are Skagway, Hoonah and Angoon.
“Each one is very unique,” said Robert Venables, executive director of the Southeast Conference, which is helping to publicize the online survey.
“Take a look at Skagway, the biggest small port you can get,” Venables said of the northernmost community in Southeast which, before the pandemic shut down cruise ship traffic last year, would see close to a million passengers a year in a town of less than 1,000 year-round residents.
Hoonah, population about 800, has been steadily developing its tourism attractions and facilities, with two cruise ship docks and a few hundred thousand summer visitors pre-pandemic.
Angoon, with about 500 residents, “barely has a tourism impact,” Venables said.
The Forest Service is helping to fund the project, which is being managed by the university.
“The data will be used by the Southeast Conference and other regional organizations that are working together to understand how these communities and households have been affected by the pandemic and also how to improve conditions in the future,” the conference explains on its
website.
“The goals of the one-year study (which began last October) are to explore the social and economic effects of COVID-19 on the Southeast Alaska region in general and focusing on four communities,” Carol Rushmore, Wrangell’s economic development director, said in a report for the borough assembly this week.
The study also intends to “develop an understanding of how communities have adapted to these changes through policy, programs, initiatives or governance structures,” Rushmore said.
The online survey is seeking responses on “economic impacts to families from the loss of the summer tourism season,” she said.
People can go to the Southeast Conference website for the link to the survey: http://www.seconference.org. Survey participants will be entered in a drawing for a $100 gift card.
“The survey should take no more than 10 minutes of your time,” the organization’s website says. “All responses are anonymous and will not be linked to your name or your business name. … The final report will summarize data from the community at large, not from individual respondents.”
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