Alaska lawmakers call for summer cruise season

Last week, Governor Mike Dunleavy signed a bipartisan bill calling on the federal government to exempt cruise ships from the Passenger Vessel Services Act and allow them to come to Alaska this summer. The exemption would offer some relief to a tourism economy badly hurting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Passenger Vessel Services Act was passed in 1886 and prohibits foreign-flagged passenger ships from making voyages within the United States. Today, that means that commercial cruises – most of which are foreign-flagged – are required to make at least one stop in a foreign country between stops in US harbors.

For Alaskan cruises, that means stopping over in Canada. But the Canadian government has announced that its ports will remain closed to cruise ships through at least the end of 2021 because of COVID-19. That means that no large cruise ships will be able to come to Alaska this summer, which could be devastating for Southeast Alaska where much of the economy relies on cruise tourism. The region is already hurting from the lack of tourism in 2020, and another cruise-less year could be a death blow for some communities.

Governor Dunleavy, the Alaska Congressional delegation and Alaskan lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been vocal critics of the restrictions and called on Congress to offer Alaskan cruises a special waiver so that they can run this summer.

“Alaska was anticipated to welcome 1.3 million tourists by cruise ship before the pandemic shut that down,” said Dunleavy in a statement. “The combined total economic loss from a canceled cruise ship season in 2020 and 2021 amounts to $6 billion, with 2,180 businesses at direct risk – many of which are small familyowned businesses.”

He has threatened to file legal actions against the Centers for Disease Control if it does not recommend to Congress that the restrictions be lifted. In a press conference, he also announced an aggressive marketing campaign in the Lower 48 aimed at attracting summer tourists to the state.

The CDC has so far not responded to the bill. Ralph Samuels, a former politician and current vice president of cruise line Holland America, said in the same press conference that if the restrictions were lifted now, they wouldn’t be able to mobilize cruises until July at the earliest. So unless an exemption is granted in the immediate future, it’s unlikely major cruises will run in Alaska this summer.

The impact on Nome is less extreme but still pronounced, said City Manager Glenn Steckman. Of the 15 cruise ships originally planned for this summer, only five or six will be able to make it up to Nome.

Those ships will be the smaller ones, which usually have around 150 passengers and fly under the U.S. flag, so they aren’t impacted by the Canadian port closures.

A report from the state estimated that Nome would lose around $6,000 in sales tax from the lack of cruise ships, but Steckman said it would likely be more than that. He explained that in addition to hosting tourists from the cruise ships, Nome often acts as a crew exchange area, and those crew members starting or finishing their voyages give a significant boost to the city’s summer economy. Cruise ships also frequently resupply from Nome vendors.

Steckman said he wasn’t sure yet what economic impact COVID would have on the summer tourism season, but the lack of cruise ships would be a significant part of it. Nome may be eligible to apply for American Rescue Plan funds allocated by the state to communities impacted by the lack of tourism, but the details of that program have not been announced.