The first cruise ship to visit Alaska in almost two years docked on Friday in Ketchikan. Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas arrived Friday morning after leaving Seattle on Wednesday. The ship is part of a test cruise under the CDC’s COVID-19 protocols. U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski joined state leaders and community members in Ketchikan to welcome the ship.
Sen. Murkowski:
“We’re talking about local economies that, for the past 21 months now, have really been hit hard. When you look at this ship behind us, it’s pretty big. It’s like its own city. In many ways, these cruise ships are. They are their own economies. They are able to move around, but these local economies are stationary. These local economies are the ones that rely on these big floating cities to bring people, to bring families, to an extraordinary place for an extraordinary opportunity.”
Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer:
“This is a celebration. The cruise ships are back, baby, just look. This is just the boost that our Alaska economy has needed and has wanted. Both our economy and our local tourism-related businesses. Hopefully we can recoup some of the losses that we have had in 2020, but we’ll use this year to build a foundation for 2022. We went all around the state, all over the state, not just here in Ketchikan. All of the tourism businesses throughout the state are reliant on the cruise ships. The businesses we talked to, they couldn’t believe that the cruise ships are back, frankly I didn’t either.”
In 2019, Alaska hosted over 1.3 million visitors by way of cruise ships. That number came to a halt in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated mandates, decimating Alaskan small businesses and Alaska’s overall economy. The tourism industry in Alaska typically generates more than $214 million in state and municipal revenue, more than $1.4 billion in payroll, and $2.2 billion in visitor spending – all of which saw a significant decline during the coronavirus pandemic.
The cruise was conducted to demonstrate to the CDC the implementation of COVID-19 protocols. 78 sailings are currently scheduled to take place in Alaska for the remainder of the 2021 season. The Serenade of the Seas is scheduling seven-night cruises with stops in Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan when it clears its test.