Haines’ cruise ship season wrapped up on Oct. 5, ending a strong year for the industry with the number of passengers far exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Still, business owners and tourism officials say the town faces challenges for next year including irregular store hours and concerns about wildlife at Chilkoot Lake.
Nearly 80,000 cruise ship passengers visited Haines in 2023, compared to 54,000 in 2019, based on numbers provided by borough tourism director Rebecca Hylton. On top of that, Hylton estimated 30,000 crew members visited Haines, and an untold number of independent travelers.
“This seems like the first real normal year in a few years,” Hylton said, adding that anecdotally, independent travel seemed to be surging.
That enthusiasm was echoed by local business owners.
“It was a very good season,” said George Hoffman, who owns the Haines Hitch Up RV Park. “It was the best we had.”
“It was fast and frantic,” said Christy Fowler, who owns the Pioneer Bar and Bamboo Room restaurant. “I guess coming out of COVID, it seemed to amp up really quickly and surprisingly.”
But Hylton said visitor surveys and input from local businesses showed that there were serious challenges to visitors having an enjoyable stay in Haines. Foremost was irregular hours at local businesses. Hylton said she heard many stories of visitors arriving at a restaurant or food truck on a non-cruise ship day, only to find the shop closed, despite hours posted online showing the establishment would be open.
“I totally get that on a personal level, but if you’re a visitor here and you see someone’s hours are posted and you go to this restaurant and they’re closed, there’s that frustration,” she said.
Hylton said she was hoping that problem would improve with more daytime visits by cruise lines next year. This year, several ships came in at 7 p.m. only to find few dining options or stores open. Next year, Hylton said at least the Royal Caribbean ships scheduled for Thursdays will be coming in during the day and staying longer. That could make staffing easier for local businesses and encourage passengers to get into town more.
“Sometimes you’ve got a bigger ship docking at five or seven, and you’ve got to have essentially a full staff to handle the big ship, even though it’s fast and furious for just an hour or two,” said Rhonda Hinson, who co-owns Alaska Rod’s in downtown. “That in itself creates challenges.”
Fowler said that staffing was also a big challenge for her this year.
“That was the hardest challenge, not burning out our staff,” she said. It’s kind of hard in general to get workers, but I think people just had a different mindset after COVID.”
Hylton is planning to introduce a new Tourism Best Management Practices proposal modeled after Juneau and other Southeast communities at a Tourism Advisory Board meeting.
The proposal would add voluntary standards for business employees, including keeping housing clean, properly throwing away trash, and maintaining clean company vehicles.
Hylton also said she is considering a more comprehensive visitor survey of both cruise and non-cruise ship passengers which could help the community figure out how to improve for visitors.