Progress 2021: Valley tourism experts and businesses hope for the best for 2021 Season

As Valley businesses get ready for the summer season, the impacts of last year’s shutdowns traffic continue to hang heavy. And top of mind for everyone, local tourism experts said, are the unknowns about what this year will bring as so much about whether visitors will even make it into the state at all remains up in the air.

“For this summer it is really hard to tell, to be honest,” Casey Ressler, who leads the MatSu Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) said in early February. “Realistically right now we’re 120-days out from when the first cruise ships would be scheduled to come and there’s just no identification that that’s going to happen.”

Canada announced Feb. 4 a ban on all cruise ships with over 100 passengers, effectively shutting down Alaska’s traditional summer cruise season. Cruise companies are reportedly weighing options, such as trips originating from and returning to an Alaska port. Canada also continues to keep their borders closed to all non-essential travel, effectively shutting out any visitors who may have otherwise come from outside by RV. And with state health mandates constantly in flux, business owners are unable to accurately plan how many people they can host at once in their shops, restaurants or on tours.

Before the 2020 COVID shutdowns, Alaska’s tourism industry relied heavily on cruise ship passengers, with a smaller but significant amount also coming via Canada. For example, the 2.2 million tourists who visited Alaska in 2019, 60% or 1.3 million came on cruise ships, according to an Oct. 2020 report from the Federal Maritime Commission.

And even though the MatSu does not see ships pull in, prior to 2020 thousands of those cruise passengers annually made their way through the Valley on tour buses and in rental cars or RVs, spending money at local restaurants, gift shops, tour companies and hotels, Ressler said.

In the past local tourism industry experts and business owners have spent their time gaming how to get those cruise passengers to do more than pause in the Valley for a snack and a bathroom break. But going into 2021 they are now planning how to live without them.

For Ressler and the CVB, that means continuing to work with local businesses to help them pivot to draw in the visitors who are arriving into the state by air. The CVB worked with a tourism research firm late last year to survey 2,000 potential visitors with an eye towards getting them to come to the MatSu and stay for a while.

“First and foremost, scenic beauty should be front and center of all messaging as it is a top desired experience and top attribute considered in the destination selection process,” that report, available on the CVB website, states among its many recommendations. “Additionally, showcasing Mat-Su’s opportunities for both adventure and relaxation will be important.”

Sam Dinges, the executive director of the Palmer Visitor Center, has been working to put that and other CVB advice into action. During a typical tourism season between 30,000 and 35,000 people stop at the Palmer Visitor Center, he said, many of them arriving on tour buses. But in 2021 the building remained closed through June, and after it opened a mere 6,000 people stopped in.

Rather than waiting for people to show-up, Dinges said he and his team at the visitor center, the nearby Palmer Museum and the Palmer Chamber of Commerce leaned into making changes and creating engaging content. They hired local travel writers to fill their website with compelling Palmer-related guides and information, a tactic also recommended by the CVB research. And they produced a Palmer visitor guide packed with maps, itineraries and related information.

Based on what he’s hearing ahead of the tourism season, Dinges said he thinks things won’t be as challenging as they were last year.

“Taking everything with a heavy grain of salt there's a couple indicators,” he said. “One is that we are getting requests for information.”

Business owners are hopeful in Talkeetna, too, said Bill Rodwell, who owns Talkeetna Cabins and serves as the president of the Talkeetna Chamber of Commerce. Takeetna relies on foot traffic from out-of-state visitors to bring most of its business, most of whom arrive by bus or train through the cruise industry. He is hopeful the cruise companies shift their model for 2021 to land cruise travel, and still bring in the visitors.

The real challenge, he said, is for businesses who are grappling with capacity questions.

“Some businesses may still be challenged with their business in terms of physical distancing,” he said. “How many people can you put on a boat? How much physical spacing will we see still need?”

Businesses across the Valley and state will also likely lean on the same tourists who saved the day last year: their fellow Alaskans. Business owners and tourism officials across the MatSu said Alaskans traveling in-state propped them up over 2020, keeping them open. Some even reported dramatically increased traffic. At the Matanuska Glacier Park, for example, caretaker Bill Stevenson reported a dramatic increase in their winter-tour booking. And in Talkeetna Rodwell said he’s already noticing regular foot traffic.

“Even now in the midst of the pandemic we’re seeing folks come into town,” he said. “Even if they just walk the street and get take-out they're having a good time enjoying the outdoors and the small town charm.”