Foot traffic coming across the Haines dock from cruise ships and the Haines-Skagway Fast Ferry next season is predicted to increase by 17.5 to 19 percent, according to the tentative 2019 cruise ship schedule from the Haines Borough Tourism Department and Haines-Skagway Fast Ferry’s projections.
The total number of cruise and ferry tourists who headed to Haines this year was 128,768 including crew members. A 17.5 percent increase reflects a rise of about 22,500 people.
The Commerce Committee met on Thursday to discuss tour permits, and hear from tour company operators in attendance if they think Haines is equipped to deal with the spike in tourism. “My goal for this meeting is to find out whether or not the tour operators here think that the infrastructure in Haines can handle the increase [in tourism] that’s coming,” committee chair Sean Maidy said.
Jo Goerner, who worked for Haines Family Fishing Charters this summer, said she was concerned about the only available company selling out its seats to larger tour companies, and making it difficult to conduct business. “The fast ferry seems to be serving only a handful of tour operators here in Haines, and limits the capacity for small operators…to have tourists come over,” she said.
Tour operator for Chilkoot Lake Tours, Jeanette Baker, said she reserves space on the fast ferry a year and a half in advance, and still has clients cut at the docks. “That’s a problem across the board that every single Haines operator has,” she said.
Baker told the committee that the Haines-Skagway Fast Ferry (HSFF) has purchased another boat to accommodate for the increase in tourism in the coming season.
The HSFF, which added an additional vessel to their fleet halfway through the 2018 season due to an unanticipated influx of sales, will begin next year with a 30 percent increase in capacity.
Tom Tougas, owner of Four Seasons Marine which provides the HSFF with boats, told the CVN that his company has a three-year contract with HSFF for three vessels, beginning in 2019.
They have swapped out a propeller boat for a smaller jet boat with a 150-person carrying capacity. The jet boat and the propeller boat hold 150 and 172 passengers respectively.
Though the carrying capacity has gone down, Tougas says overall runs will go up because of increased flexibility. Knowing far in advance the size of their fleet will allow more space for smaller tour operators, Tougas said.
“Smaller ships gives you more flexibility, and one of the challenges in Haines is that there’s a lot of days when the tide is low and when the tide is low we can’t use the propeller boats…and the jet boats were built specifically for that run,” Tougas said.
HSFF plans for an additional 272 round trip runs for 2019, according to HSFF Operations Manager Stephanie Hawney.
At the Tuesday meeting, audience member George Figdor asked the committee to consider broadening the idea of carrying capacity. “An important part of the carrying capacity concept is the capacity of the land and the experiences that land currently offers conflicting uses,” Figdor said. Criteria like noise and land use should be looked at, he said.
The Chilkoot has been a difficulty for decades and the borough has never been willing to regulate in terms of capacity, borough manager Debra Schnabel said. “We do recognize that we have capacity issues and there’s always a point where it’s no longer fun or interesting,” Schnabel said.
“If we do nothing else this year, we have to look at the capacity with DNR [Alaska Department of Natural Resources], look at the capacity for Chilkoot Corridor, figure out how we can work with DNR to try to manage the traffic and the bears-to-person interaction and the incredible congestion,” Schnabel said. She wants to coordinate borough efforts with DNR.
Southeast Regional Alaska State Parks Superintendent, Preston Kroes told the CVN that DNR has to try to figure out what the numbers of tourists will be for next year. “This increase affects all of the Haines area tourism, not just the Chilkoot Corridor,” he said.
Maidy requested tour operators submit their end of the year recaps for 2018, which they are not currently required to do, to give the borough a clearer idea of projected tour numbers for next season.