Juneau got a record number of cruise ship passengers for a second straight year, with 1,677,935 arriving during the 2024 season that ended Oct. 24 compared to 1,638,902 last year, according to the Docks and Harbors Department.
Ships this year were at 104% capacity — meaning some cabins had more than two people staying in them, such as a child with parents — compared to 101% capacity last year, according to Docks and Harbors. Every month of this year’s season between April and October was at or above 100% capacity, compared to last year when it was 96% in May and 98% in September.
This year’s visitor numbers were about in line with expectations, Alexandra Pierce, Juneau’s tourism manager, said.
“The season went pretty well operationally,” she said. “Our biggest issue was (lack of) crossing guards downtown and we’re working on a fix for that over the winter. Of course, we also had issues with connectivity — cell phone connectivity — and we think we’ve resolved that between the city’s Wi-Fi project and the providers adding capacity.”
Hovering over the community during this year’s season was a high-profile debate about the impacts of cruise tourism —· good and bad — due to a ballot proposition seeking to ban cruise ships with capacity for 250 or more passengers on Saturdays and the Fourth of July. The proposition was defeated with 61% of voters opposing it in the Oct. 1 municipal election.
Pierce said she expects a slight decrease in passengers next year, with 1,625,950 as the current projection, and the hope is to establish a reliably predictable number of passengers at about that level in future years.
“If our numbers are predictable we can plan and manage, and try to solve problems rather than bracing for record growth year over year,” she said.
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