Kodiak is scheduled to have 30 large and small cruise ships with up to 27,783 passengers this year. That’s the most Kodiak has had in recent memory.
Brock Simmons is Discover Kodiak’s executive director. He said this year will be a good test to see if having more tourism is good for the island community.
“We’ll see how it goes, and I think that it’ll be important for the community to talk about how it felt to have that many cruise ships and if it’s too much or too little,” he said.
He said the bureau’s member businesses only see small upticks in sales on cruise ship days.
Simmons has worked with people around the state to see how local businesses can be more profitable. But comparing with other towns isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison.
“Kodiak’s so different,” he said. “We’re so different from Southeast because the cruise ship companies don’t own any property here – they don’t own any jewelry stores or souvenir stores.”
Also, he said Kodiak’s cruise visitors are sometimes hesitant to spend money here and suspects it’s because Kodiak’s usually at the very beginning or the very end of a cruise. Companies often use Kodiak as a transition port to reposition their ships around the world.
“We get ships coming from Asia in the spring, and then they spend their summers going down Southeast Alaska,” Simmons said. “Then in the fall, they return back to Asia.”
Simmons also discussed accessibility issues at the talk.
“Just the lack of access to public bathrooms and the lack of access to even just public seating,” he said.
A significant number of cruise ship passengers have mobility issues, and Simmons said he’s advocating for more benches around downtown.
Discover Kodiak’s talk was part of the bureau’s new contract with the city to hold an annual public briefing.
The first cruise ship of the season is scheduled for April 29 and the season is set to end Sept. 27.
