Bucket List: Alaska

By Marleanna Hall

The number of visitors to Alaska was a record 1.96 million people last year, reported Gideon Garcia, RDC board member, and Chief Operating Officer, CIRI Alaska Tourism. Garcia spoke at the Alaska Resources Conference in November.

Alaska’s visitor industry accounts for 46,000 Alaska jobs, and $3.9 billion dollars in spending. Tourism is on the rise in the overall U.S., and in the last year supplied 7.9 million jobs, an increase over the previous year of about 2.5 percent.

“A very important part of the Alaska industry are the cruise lines, they bring about 60 percent of those guests coming during the summer time to Alaska,” said Garcia. “A projected modest increase in traffic in 2015 is about 2.8 percent.”

Air traffic is increasing in several communities, particularly in Juneau, which saw a 16.3 percent rise. Fairbanks had tough news when Frontier Airlines decided to pull out, partly because of the Flint Hills refinery, explained Garcia.

Looking forward to 2015, “we are looking at a 2-3 percent increase in visitor traffic. Alaska continues to be a strong travel destination. We are on many people’s bucket lists,” said Garcia.

The Alaska cruise market only represents about 5.5 percent of the world cruise market, and there is room to grow. “We need to keep in mind that we need to keep a competitive market place,” warned Garcia.

“Cruise ships are floating hotels and they can float somewhere else just as easily as they can float here,” cautioned Garcia. “There has definitely been a pivot to Asia, as China becomes a middle class society.”

“Alaska is still a unique draw, but we need to market our state as a unique, authentic experience,” highlighted Garcia. “But we are Alaska, we are unique.”

Gideon Garcia

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