A slow start to a cruise ship day in downtown Skagway. (Kari Rain photo)

Nearly half a million cruise ship passengers had visited Skagway through the end of July this year. With ships arriving less than full and half of the town’s busiest cruise ship dock closed due to landslides it appears passenger numbers will fall far short of the 1.5 million predicted by the cruise industry earlier this spring. KHNS’ Mike Swasey sat down with Skagway Tourism Director Jaime Bricker about the department’s latest numbers report and a sneak-peek at the upcoming Klondike Road Relay.

Swasey – Skagway tourism director Jaime Bricker, thank you for joining us today. Your department released a visitor volume report this last week, mainly talking about cruise ship passengers. What are the numbers looking like this year so far?

Bricker – Well, the Skagway Visitor Center estimates the number of cruise passengers based on double occupancy in each room. Based on the numbers that we actually received from Customs and Border Services in May, ships were averaging about 58% capacity. In June it was 63%, and then in July, we’re looking at about 75% average capacity. 

Swasey – So that’s a consistently increasing number. Do we have projections as to whether those percentages are going to continue through the rest of the season? 

Bricker – What I’m hearing from (the) industry is that they expect passenger capacity to continue to rise. People’s confidence in the cruise industry has been growing, and so I hope to see that number increase.

Swasey – So your numbers go through July. At the beginning of the season, Cruise Lines estimated 1.5 million people coming to Alaska with the bulk of those coming to Skagway. Are we going to get anywhere near that number?

Bricker – No, I think we’re gonna fall short because of the capacity issue a little bit. But then in addition to that, there’s the rock slide issue and we’ve lost a number of sailings. Based on what we estimate passenger numbers to be for each one of those sailings that we lose, I estimate we’ll probably fall short of about 100,000 passengers based on the traffic that we’ve lost specifically due to the rock slide issue.

Swasey – And is that about 30 ships worth of people? 

Bricker – Yeah, correct. 

Swasey – You know, at this point in the season through July, the numbers are what, about a half a million?

Bricker – For passengers, 444,000. So yeah, I guess roughly half a million.

Swasey –  Ships like the Bliss and the Encore are expected in mid-October. But for instance, the Encore doesn’t tender and the only dock they can stop at is the Railroad Dock. Am I correct on that?

Bricker – Yeah, it’s my understanding that Norwegian Cruise Lines is looking for a solution to that problem. But I did check with Cruise Line Agencies and they hadn’t heard word back on what, if any, the solution will be for that problem. 

Swasey – So we don’t know for sure what’s going to happen in October?

Bricker – It’s purely speculation as to whether or not those will be replaced or whether or not they’ll come. 

Swasey – Well you have some other numbers in there. We had 77 People walk to Skagway in July, is that right?

Bricker – These numbers actually come from Customs and Border Services. And they’re approved through Washington (DC). So I have to assume that those numbers have been meticulously looked after. And I guess there are 77 pedestrians that have arrived through the Port of Skagway this year.

Swasey – Maybe they’re lumping bicyclists in with the pedestrian traffic. 

And then let’s finally quickly touch on the Klondike Road Relay coming up early next month, give us a quick preview of that.

Bricker – I’m incredibly excited to have Sport Yukon down here again this year to kick off the Klondike Road Relay after a two-year hiatus. There’s going to be a little bit of change in the start time, the first group to leave Second Avenue in Skagway will be at 7:30 pm Alaska time. 

And of course, White Pass and Yukon Route is kicking off with their train whistle and we’ll have an incredible DJ at the front line I hear (DJ Sway-Z). And I hear there are over 1,500 racers this year. So there’s a huge contingent of people anxious to get back to the race and I am one of them running leg eight for team SNAFU this year.

Swasey – So this is the first time since 2019 it’ll go all the way from Skagway to Whitehorse, right? 

Bricker – Correct. 

Swasey – Amazing to have that event back in Skagway. Tourism Director Jaime Bricker, thanks for taking the time. 

Bricker – Thank you.