With two record breaking summer cruise seasons under the city’s belt and a third on the way, Sitkans are reflecting on how the community is responding to growth in the tourism sector. Now, the Sitka Assembly is asking whether it should change the scope of its visitor services program to focus on something beyond bringing more visitors to town.
The City of Sitka contracts out its visitor services program to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber provides those services through a nonprofit called Visit Sitka. Its goal is to increase the level of visitor traffic to enhance and maintain local tourism business. The city typically pays the Chamber around half a million dollars a year for those services.
While the assembly recently approved funding for Visit Sitka through the end of 2024, assembly member JJ Carlson said now is the time to consider whether the current contract dedicated to attracting more visitors is the best use of resources, in the midst of unprecedented growth in the tourism industry.
“The hope for this discussion this evening is to just look at if this contract is helping us today,” Carlson said. “It was drafted over five years ago, things have changed in that amount of time, and if we do think we want to move towards a different phrasing in the contract, how do we do that, you know, starting January 2025?”
Assembly member Thor Christianson said the organization is spending too much time focusing on cruise tourists over independent travelers, who typically spend more time and money in Sitka than the average cruise tourist. And Christianson said even the independent traveler numbers were pushing the limits of what Sitka’s facilities can handle.
“Way back when we had the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau…we didn’t have the level of independent travelers we do now. I mean, you could get a hotel room in July. You can’t get a hotel room in July right now, or short-term rental or anything like that,” Christianson said. “Is it really something we want to continue putting resources into when we’re already at capacity? Or is it, do we want to refocus on more…visitor conventions and other visitors in the fall or in the spring?”
Assembly member Tim Pike said with the current levels of cruise traffic, it was impossible for whoever provides tourist services not to focus on cruise passengers, but he agreed that the contract needed to be reexamined. And while Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said he didn’t want to cut down on marketing to independent travelers, he agreed with other assembly members that the scope of the contract needed some realigning.
“Things have changed pretty drastically for our community in a very short period of time, and want to make sure that everyone is firing on all cylinders to get us forward to the ultimate goal, whatever that ultimate goal is decided to be,” Eisenbeisz said. “Just want to make sure that we’re all pulling together in one same direction, and that all the needs are being met of this not insignificant amount of money that’s expended every year.”
The discussion was just the beginning of unpacking what the Sitka Assembly wants from its visitor services program. Mayor Eisenbeisz said he would work with the city clerk to schedule a special work session for assembly members to dig further into the contract with the Sitka Chamber of Commerce sometime in February.
