Market Update: Alaska 2025 summer tourism was ‘soft’ amid economic jitters and reduced marketing money – Full Analysis

Visitor numbers to Alaska were nearly flat last summer following a dip in cruise ship traffic, an unusual plateau for an industry that typically sees solid growth.

The state saw just 4,000 more tourists last summer, compared to the previous year, according to a new report commissioned by the Alaska Travel Industry Association.

That’s a bump of 0.1% percent, in a total of 2.7 million visitors.

“A flat season is OK, I guess,” Jillian Simpson, president of the Alaska Travel Industry Association, said in an interview this week.

“It’s not great,” she said. “Certainly it feels like there’s an opportunity for tourism to be growing in Alaska. But it wasn’t a decline. And so that feels like a win.”

Early season last June, some operators reported slightly slower bookings in some sectors, such as international visitors, amid geopolitical and economic concerns caused by President Donald Trump’s global trade wars and rhetoric.

The leveling off in visitor numbers is unusual for the industry, she said.

“We’ve been on a steady trend of growth for several years,” she said, not counting the COVID-related downturn in 2020 when cruise ships to Alaska were canceled.

Also potentially affecting the summer tourism numbers: The group had less marketing funding to reach potential visitors, she said.

That money dropped after the group had used a COVID-related $5 million federal grant the previous year.

Alaska saw about 1.8 million travelers arrive by cruise ship last year, a decrease of 0.4% from the year earlier, the report said.

About 900,000 travelers arrived by air, an increase of 0.8%.

Less than 100,000 people arrived by highway or ferry.

Anchorage snapshot

While most cruise guests visit Southeast communities, about a quarter of them travel to Seward and Whittier, delivering visitors to Anchorage.

That cross-gulf cruise traffic fell 5% from the year before, the report said.

That likely had to do with how cruise lines allocated their ships last year, Simpson said.

The cross-gulf numbers are expected to rise this summer, in part because a new dock in Seward will be available to handle larger ships, she said.

Anchorage bed tax revenues, a tourism indicator, were down last summer, compared to a year earlier, the report said.

The annual income fell to $45 million, falling more than $4 million from the year before, an 8% drop.

Hotel demand for Anchorage last summer was a bit softer compared to the year before, said Jack Bonney with Visit Anchorage, the city’s tourism bureau.

But that trend has recently reversed, with growth in January up from the year before.

Hotel supply was tight last year, with some renovations underway and some hotels in recent years coming off the tourism market.

But the situation for hotel supply has started to shift, too, with growth in that area, he said.

For example, a 141-room Courtyard by Marriott Hotel has planned to open its doors in spring in Midtown, at 4960 A St.

Cross-gulf cruise ship capacity is also expected to grow this summer by 10% to 15%, he said.

That should also help boost visitor numbers, Bonney said.

Advance hotel bookings for so far this year are showing positive signs, he said.

“It appears that, at least for advanced bookings, at the same time last year, we’re ahead of the game,” he said.