Cruise berths visiting Wrangell almost doubled this season from last year. Visiting ships are providing capacity for nearly 75,000 guests over the season, up from almost 42,000 the previous year.
The borough directly profits from the vessels docking here through a variety of taxes and fees. Businesses also navigate how to make money from this seasonal increase in visitors that varies greatly from week to week and ship to ship.
I don’t expect that everybody that comes off the boat, you know, buys stuff from every store from me or whatever. I like to see people here. I like to see the boats here because we know that they bring money.
Bonnie Ritchie has been selling jewelry near the cruise ship dock for five years and says she has noticed an increase in her sales this year. But she says not every boat is created equal. American Cruise Lines vessels are usually pretty good for her, but guests from the Ritz-Carlton’s Luminara luxury cruise vessel show no interest in her jewelry.
Kristy Herman, who owns the Canoe Lagoon oyster farm with her husband Brian, says business at their storefront off Front Street is actually down this year. The hit-or-miss business can make it hard for her to schedule between having the storefront open or working her other job at the grocery store.
I’ve had one day with the Queen in. I did $60. Doesn’t pay me to be here. Doesn’t pay the electricity. I should have worked at IGA that day.
She’s talking about the Queen Elizabeth, a 2,000 passenger vessel that doubles the population of Wrangell when it arrives.
Because of the type of business license Canoe Lagoon has, they can’t shuck their shellfish for customers. Herman said that can drive away those looking for fresh oysters.
Instead, the Hermans have been looking for other ways to work with cruise companies to make money, in addition to the four restaurants they ship oysters to each week.
Recently they have teamed up with local companies Alaska Waters and Oceanview Gardens to provide food-based shore excursions for passengers on the Luminara. Herman says it has been pretty successful so far, but they are still feeling it out.
Herman says when the Luminara docked in late August, only four guests took part in the excursions. That equaled around $1,000 per guest, split between the three businesses.
For the borough, cruise ships are the primary source of tourism revenue, according to the borough’s economic development director Kate Thomas. The number of independent travelers has been declining since the early 2000s with cuts to the Alaska Marine Highway System.
The borough benefits from the ships in several ways, including wharf fees, port tie-up fees and the state commercial passenger vessel “head tax.” That only applies to ships with more than 250 passengers traveling through Alaska waters for more than one night. Wrangell receives $5 per guest of the $34.50 tax collected by the state.
The borough also received this year a one-time bonus of $375,000 in passenger fees collected by the state over several years that went unspent. The borough will use that money to help fund its downtown waterfront fill project.
Thomas says that increased money spent at businesses also means more sales tax to the borough.
Let’s just assume on a dollars and cents that we increase the sales tax collection for this quarter by $50 to $100,000. I mean that, year over year, makes a significant difference.
The exact amount will not be clear until the numbers for this fiscal quarter are released in November.
