As Alaska, and the United States, looks to recover economically from the coronavirus pandemic, hopes are high that tourism this year returns to normalized pre-pandemic levels. Sarah Leonard, CEO of the Alaska Travel Industry Association spoke to the Kenai Peninsula on the state of 2021-2022 tourism at the 2022 KPEDD Industry Outlook Forum in January.
Leonard provided data from 2021’s tourism season:
“Air travel in 2021, we saw or heard from most of the major Alaska state airports that they’ve reported traffic was on par this past summer with 2019 numbers indicating there was a surge of independent travelers. That obviously was better than the major decreases we saw in 2020. We have continued to see decreases, just not at the levels of the rental tax revenue. From January to June, it dropped from levels from 2019. I think throughout our communities, we’ve experienced that shortage of rental cars due to supply chain issues, which, I think impacted the rebound of car rentals in 2021. Lodging, we checked in with our community partners around what they were seeing as far as accommodations and lodgings and that while this past summer, lodging did get back to 80 or sometimes 100% occupancy, it was really across the board where some hotels that relied more on cruise visitors didn’t ever reopen. Some are doing okay.”
Alaska saw 1.33 million visitors from cruise travel in 2019, zero came in 2020, and cruise ship capacity for scheduled sailings was 175,000 visitors. Additionally, travel sentiment was high earlier in the year but declined due to variants and rising cases. It was 23.3%, down from 29.8% as fewer Americans reported traveling over the holidays. Also, there was a five-point decline in percentage of American travelers saying they will take leisure trips in January.
Looking to this year, interest in pure leisure travel grew to 69.2%. Over 30% more Americans expect to take leisure trips this year than in 2021, and American travelers say they will prioritize having fun at 75.8% over relaxing, finding happiness, and escaping stress.
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This feature is part of a continuing series by KSRM News highlighting KPEDD’s 2022 Industry Outlook Forum.
