It's Just Movies: Review of Cruise Boom by Bev Questad

Know anyone who has gone on an Alaskan cruise this past year?

The new Klondike Gold Rush (1896-189) is The Alaskan Tourist Rush. With the recent opening of a private dock in Sitka, the inhabitants say, “Welcome!” But quietly they wonder, “At what point do we lose a lot of our spirit?” One thing is for sure, they have lost significant control of their city.

Here’s what happened. With a population around 8,400, the people in Sitka voted against establishing a public dock for cruise ships. However, someone owning the local shipyard contacted Royal Caribbean and partnered with them to build a private terminal. It was a good deal for the landowner but has proven to be a challenging ordeal for the community.

Now, without public control of the dock, the City and Borough of Sitka, which is governed by a Unified Home Rule system, realized they could not control how many ships or passengers came to Sitka, a two-island community accessible only by plane or boat. Plus, the town had no right to the docking fees.

As the baby-boomers have retired and taken to traveling around the world, Alaska offers a unique American experience. But the environmental effects of these mammoth ships and an influx of tourists in a minimum of 180 days on these tiny towns is an overwhelming challenge for the people living there. Over 379.000 cruise ship tourists visited Sitka the first year of their post-Covid cruise boom. Approx 560,000 passengers visited the second year.

Though there is some gratitude for the summer onslaught of tourist business in restaurants and souvenir shops, the Sitka people soon realized they needed to create a more robust infrastructure for electricity, waste management and accommodations for out-of-town seasonal workers. How could such a tiny town afford all this?

A PBS film, “Cruise Boom” investigates the many pros and cons besetting the Sitka residents. “Cruise Boom” is also now available online for free viewing (watch in below). Perhaps you will be motivated to get onboard for observing glaciers calving and wild animals treated well at sanctuaries. Your attendance at indigenous performances and cultural centers will hopefully re-invigorate the indigenous Alaskan heritage.

But the downside is also presented, and it may make you pause. “From Bar Harbor, Maine to Tahiti, French Polynesia, a global conversation is happening with communities working to decide what kind of tourism they want to see.” Whatever your point of view, directors Ellen Frankenstein and Atman Mehta have created a powerful film for you to ponder.

Link to It’s Just Movies Review of Cruise Boom

Original Soundtrack released for Cruise Boom!→

Just released: the original music by Graham LeBron and Bryan Lovett for the documentary film "Cruise Boom" by Ellen Frankenstein and Atman Mehta. Excited to share this soundtrack, that was created to embody the sound of change and growth. Fred Knowles and Ritch Phillips, two locals to the community in the film, also played music for the film, sharing a sound that echoes a home town and nostalgic energy.

Cruise Boom’ documentary makes national debut on PBS Posted by KCAW News | Sep 10, 2024→

Sitka-based filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein’s latest documentary, Cruise Boom, premieres nationwide on September 14 on PBS. The national debut culminates years of work on the part of Frankenstein and her co-director Atman Mehta, who explored both the potential benefits, and the possible downsides, of the explosive growth of cruise tourism in Sitka. The film will air on KTOO television at 7 p.m. Sunday, September 15. It can be streamed online at pbs.org. To learn about other ways to view the film, visit the Artchange, Inc. website.

Ellen Frankenstein and Atman Mehta began filming Cruise Boom in 2021, as Sitka transitioned from the 2020 pandemic summer of zero cruise passengers, and began a startling rebound to nearly 600,000 passengers in 2023 – roughly three times more than a typical summer prior to the pandemic.

Cruise Boom, however, is not a scathing indictment of the industry. Frankenstein wants the audience to think broadly about what’s unfolding, as communities react to the surging numbers.

“It is a really complex issue we try to cover in a very impressionistic film, because tourism, as we know, is super complex,” said Frankenstein. “Everybody loves to travel. We all love experiencing new places. The economic side is so amazing, because we have new food trucks in town, new businesses and all these good things. But globally, you can’t miss it in the news that over-tourism, or the saturation of tourism, is affecting places. And there’s pushback from Barcelona to Bali, there’s an upcoming vote in Juneau about ship-free Saturdays. So it’s just this interesting conversation that is not just pertinent to Sitka. So when people respond to this film elsewhere, they’re seeing it kind of as a case study.”

Frankenstein and Mehta intend the film to stimulate conversation. In fact, there are several scenes in the movie that are just conversation – Sitkans discussing how to confront, and possibly manage, the rapid growth. 

No one is blind to the obvious benefits, as new businesses emerge downtown, and the municipal budget swells with increased sales tax revenues. But there are hazards, too.

Here’s an excerpt from the film.

Speaker1: “I’m either a  fifth or sixth generation Sitkan, and in order for myself, my family, friends, to continue to be able to live here, there has to be an economic means for us to work and make money.

Speaker2: “I don’t want us to be a destination. I value our community, because we’re a community. You know, the pulp mill sustained the community for years, but had excesses in how much it logged and how fast it logged in the environment.  Cruise ships is a similar thing. 

Speaker3: “If we’re going to help shape tourism, we really have to be active and engaged stakeholders. That means talking to the cruise ship lines. It means asking the hard questions. 

Speaker4: “The story is unfolding right now. So we can’t tell the ending because it’s happening right now.”

Frankenstein and Mehta shot the film over a couple of years, so Frankenstein describes it now as history, although Sitka is far from settled into the new volume of passengers. They released rough cuts early in the process, and have shown the final film several times, most recently for a group of students from Johns Hopkins University who are working toward Masters Degrees in Environmental Policy.

Frankenstein says the screening prompted an intense conversation about solutions.

“When there’s something like this that happened to Sitka in another place, who is responsible to help manage it and see how it all works out?” asked Frankenstein. “And we had this discussion: Is it the responsibility of the city and the government? Is it citizens? Is it tourists? Do we expect tourists to be more responsible in the way they travel?”

For everyone who’s not working toward a Masters Degree in Environmental Policy, Cruise Boom is a kind of mirror. The film is set in Sitka, but the same questions are being asked in other Alaskan coastal communities.

“We’ve also had community screenings in places like Skagway and Cordova and Homer in the state, and Juneau, and it’s been great,” Frankenstein said. “People have this discussion about their relationship to tourism and what they value in their communities?”

Cruise Boom will be available to stream on the PBS website or app beginning September 14. The film will be broadcast on the PBS television network nationwide – including Alaska’s PBS stations – beginning on September 15th.

KCAW’s Darryl Rehkopf contributed to this story.

Listen to the full interview with Ellen Frankenstein.

When Sitka reopened to cruise: Travel Weekly →

OPINIONFrom the Window Seat

By Arnie Weissmann 

Sep 04, 2024

Cruise tourism to Sitka, Alaska, began in 1882 and has been "an important part of the economy ever since," said resident Tonia Puletau-Lang, who has been involved in local tourism for nine years.

But, she added, "it's also been a contentious and volatile" economic sector.

Puletau-Lang's comments are expressed in the film "Cruise Boom," debuting on PBS on Sept. 14.

The movie documents months of preparation for the 2022 cruise season. That year, the first full season after the pandemic shutdown, the industry appears to be making up for lost time, with a predicted 480,000 passengers disembarking in Sitka, significantly over the 2019 count. (Cruise arrivals in 2022 turned out to be closer to 383,000, according to city officials).

The film includes clips from 25 public meetings as the town puts together a short-term plan to brace for an unprecedented number of arrivals.

For some residents, the topic is especially "contentious and volatile." Referenda to fund a public cruise port had repeatedly failed. However, an unprofitable Sitka boatyard that had been providing services to local fishing boats pivoted to built a private big-ship cruise port, one large enough for Oasis-class ships to dock, with financial support from Royal Caribbean Group.

The film, made by 30-year Sitka resident Ellen Frankenstein, strives for balance. She interviews opponents to increased arrivals as well as those for whom the "cruise boom" is an economic boom.

Martha Honey, co-founder of the Center for Responsible Travel and industry critic, spells out in a video interview what she sees as the industry's less-than-community-spirited practices elsewhere.

But the film also records a spokesperson for a local raptor recovery center who expresses gratitude for Royal's financial support.

Interest in cruising Alaska has exploded post-pandemic. This year, 600,000 passengers are expected to disembark in Sitka. Local critics in the film pointed to Skagway as an example of how a town's character can be diluted if cruising gets too large; that town's mayor, in turn, points to Juneau as the cautionary tale.

(To address citizen discontent, Juneau and CLIA signed a nonbinding agreement in the spring of 2023 to set a limit of five big cruise ships a day.)

"Tourism can undermine the fabric of your community if you're not careful," Skagway mayor Andrew Cremata said in the film. "The only way [to avoid it] is by having a conversation."

The need for dialogue is the leitmotif of the film, one that Renee Limoge Reeve, vice president of government and community relations for CLIA in Alaska, seems to be in tune with. 

"We'd be naive to think we don't have an impact," she says in the film. "So how do we help manage the impact, to encourage people to be involved and have their voices heard and figure out how we can work together to minimize the impacts?"

Mary Goddard of the regenerative tourism group Sustainable Southeast Partnership might be expected to voice opinions that simply counter CLIA's positions, but her quote in the film isn't too different from Reeve's: "We have to be active and engaged stakeholders," she says. "That means being involved in policymaking, that means talking to the cruise ship lines, it means asking the hard questions, it really means being innovative and being problem-solvers."

Even the manager of the private cruise ship port acknowledges the complexity of the situation. "There are negatives that had to be addressed and figured out," he said. "But also positives. You'll see sales tax revenues increase to the millions. And we get our community from October to April, without any cruise ships."

The film's 360-degree approach includes guides, shopkeepers, environmentalists and passengers. Fishermen grumble about the loss of the boatyard, asserting that decisions need to be made "so one industry doesn't trample on another."

But a third-generation owner of a store that features products with a local flavor was delighted with cruise passengers. "They come in the morning and leave in the evening; who could ask for anything better?"

The filmmaker wrote to me that she "wanted to share a little humanity and whimsy from people getting off the ships." Interviews with passengers were generally positive, with one family saying they'll return to stay longer, but another saying they were interested in Native art, though they would like to see it presented in a less touristy fashion.

"You can't stop people from coming," one resident comments in the film. "Get in front of tourism, get in front of it," another says. "Tourism doesn't just have to happen to you. You can help shape it."

Another, with poignancy: "How does any community figure out what's best for all of us?"

How, indeed; communities are not monolithic in opinion. But Sitka took the time -- 25 public meetings! -- to make sure that all voices were heard.

By the end of the 2023 season, 585,000 passengers had disembarked in Sitka, city officials said; that's more than a 52% year-over-year increase.

Tourism evolves. It's dynamic, and it's important to keep in mind that what a community decides this year may change with circumstances the next. It should be, rightfully, a conversation that never ends. 

Link to article on the Travel Weekly site

Ellen Frankenstein and Atman Mehta’s Documentary ‘Cruise Boom’ Looks at Effects of Tourism on Small Alaskan Town | Watch Clip→

Documentary, Trailers

August 28, 2024

Cruise Boom

From filmmakers Ellen Frankenstein (Tracing Roots, Eating Alaska) and Atman Mehta, comes Cruise Boom, a documentary telling the story of a small Alaskan town as they face a new challenge of globalization as the cruise tourism industry rebounds after the COVID lockdown. The documentary film focuses on the effects of the changes from the eyes of the town locals.

Sitka, a small Alaskan town, faces a record-breaking surge in cruise ship tourism: is the economic opportunity a cause for celebration or a threat to the heart of the community? 

Cruise Boom provides key insight in broader discussions of globalization, boom and bust economies, community self-determination, and pushback on large-scale tourism, the film provides an example of the delicate balance between the hunger for economic opportunity and the well-being of a community. 

Ellen Frankenstein

“We ended up filming for over a year, creating a documentary where the town, not individuals, is the character, the protagonist” said veteran documentarian Ellen Frankenstein.

‘Cruise Boom’ will have its world premiere on September 14, 2024 on PBS.org, the PBS app, and stations across the country.

Watch the trailer from ‘Cruise Boom’

Ellen Frankenstein is an independent director, producer and media artist. Frankenstein’s directing credits include Tracing Roots, Eating Alaska, No Loitering, and Carved from the Heart. She also created a series called 14 Miles, made up of 37 short films set in one place, hosts a live storytelling series, available via podcast, called Sitka Tell Tales. Ellen’s work has been supported by grants and awards, including a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship and grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Independent Television Service, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Alaska Humanities Forum, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Co-Director Atman Mehta recently completed a film called “A Beautiful Place,” about an Alaskan village working to keep their community together in the face of changing times and climate challenges. He cut his documentarian teeth in videographic journalism, having covered stories ranging from election day and food deserts to gun violence. His primary interests are the climate crisis, and in media which helps build a more caring, self-aware world. Atman is a doctoral student in economic history at the University of Chicago.

Watch an exclusive clip from ‘Cruise Boom

Link to the story on VIMooZ For lovers of independent films, foreign films, documentary and film festivals

Cruise Boom: PBS Premiere Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“CRUISE BOOM” WORLD PREMIERE ON PBS

Opportunity or Overtourism 

(New York - August 26, 2024)  - Ellen Frankenstein’s Cruise Boom will have its World Premiere on PBS.org, the PBS app and stations across the country starting September 14th

Sitka, a small Alaskan town, faces a record-breaking surge in cruise ship tourism: is the economic opportunity a cause for celebration or a threat to the heart of the community? Cruise Boom provides key insight in broader discussions of globalization, boom and bust economies, community self-determination, and pushback on large-scale tourism, the film provides an example of the delicate balance between the hunger for economic opportunity and the well-being of a community. 

"We ended up filming for over a year, creating a documentary where the town, not individuals, is the character, the protagonist” said veteran documentarian Ellen Frankenstein.

Ellen Frankenstein is an independent director, producer and media artist.  Frankenstein’s directing credits include Tracing Roots, Eating Alaska, No Loitering, and Carved from the Heart. She also created a series called 14 Miles, made up of 37 short films set in one place, hosts a live storytelling series, available via podcast, called Sitka Tell Tales. Ellen’s work has been supported by grants and awards, including a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship and grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Independent Television Service, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Alaska Humanities Forum, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Co-Director Atman Mehta recently completed a film called "A Beautiful Place," about an Alaskan village working to keep their community together in the face of changing times and climate challenges. He cut his documentarian teeth in videographic journalism, having covered stories ranging from election day and food deserts to gun violence. His primary interests are the climate crisis, and in media which helps build a more caring, self-aware world. Atman is a doctoral student in economic history at the University of Chicago.

Director Ellen Frankenstein is available for interviews via zoom or telephone.

 # # #

Highly Recommended: Cruise Boom: A Community on the Cusp of Change →

College - General Adult
Industries; Social Problems; Travel and Tourism

Educational Media Reviews Online

Reviewed by Kathleen H. Flynn, Science Librarian, University at Albany

What happens when over 500,000 people visit a city of fewer than 10,000 people in the summer season? Cruise Boom reveals the benefits and challenges associated with the cruise industry in local communities, particularly those with small populations. Although cruise tourism affects many cities, the film focuses on Sitka, Alaska, a city with a population under 10,000. While fishing is a major part of their economy, cruise tourism has been a fluctuating part of their community since the 1800s. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of cruise tourists that visited each summer season more than doubled with up to 580,000 people visiting one summer season. Naturally, an influx of that many people can have significant effects on a community.

Through recordings of council meetings and interviews with local citizens, business owners, cruisers, and members of the cruise industry, the film discusses how Sitka is struggling to manage the booming industry. The main challenge they face is that a city overwhelmed by tourists can find that what once brought prosperity, can soon bring destruction. An example is how small local businesses can profit from tourism until they find themselves replaced by global businesses. Similarly, the industry can give local culture a platform and wide audience but can lose authenticity if replaced by outside businesses. It is difficult to fund repairs to the city’s infrastructure, worn out by the years and usage by visitors, when the cruise industries find ways to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Sitka’s local government, and others in a similar position, are sometimes left to consider legal methods of stemming the number of ships and tourists allowed in at a given time.

The film is a well-made and engaging look at a popular industry and its effects on communities. The interviews convey a variety of viewpoints on this complex topic and leave the audience with much to consider. The topic of the environmental impact of cruise tourism is only briefly discussed, but the film is highly recommended for a general audience or college courses on hospitality management, business administration, or public policy and management.

Published and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Anyone can use these reviews, so long as they comply with the terms of the license.

Documentary encourages discussion on sustainable tourism

By Melinda Munson, KHNS | January 26, 2024

Jennifer Castle pictured filling out the anonymous poll from Sherry Corrington

Skagwegians had the unusual opportunity for dinner and a movie on Jan. 19 when Skagway Arts Council screened the documentary Cruise Boom at AB Hall. 

Directed, filmed and edited by Ellen Frankenstein and Atman Mehta, the 50-minute film explores how Sitka will deal with a drastic increase in cruise ship passengers, a seasonal total of roughly 500,000. 

Long-time Sitka resident, Frankenstein, Zoomed with the Skagway audience following the screening. She described reactions to the film.  

Ellen Frankenstein:“Well, the reception has been that this is really a hot topic. And people have a lot to say, there isn’t one way to kind of peel the onion. And I think one of the things that’s hard, and it builds for years, when you bring up stuff that has to deal with resources and economies, it’s touchy.” 

Sherry Corrington came to the event with an anonymous poll she passed around the hall. The survey read: Do you think we need to limit the number of visitors in town each day during the summer? Respondents could choose yes, no or maybe. She also provided a sign-up sheet for a future meeting to “brainstorm ways to create a sustainable model of tourism in Skagway.” 

Corrington broke down the number of Skagway cruise ship passengers per year-round resident. 

Sherry Corrington: “We got 1.3 million last year. And let’s say we have roughly 1,000 [residents], give or take. That’s 1,200-1,300 people per resident. We’re all feeling the effects of that, 100%. We’re watching our friends leave town. Prices are insane for rentals or to buy a home.” 

Bruce Schindler noted that Skagway has always struggled with keeping up with tourism, even when the numbers were as low as 500,000. 

Bruce Schindler: “We are being overwhelmed by the industry that — I think we all love this industry. But too much of a good thing will choke you. The other side of the coin has been our ability to adapt to this industry as it has grown.” 

Schindler referenced inadequate staffing and housing, lack of bathrooms and poor traffic flow. 

The conversations at the screening were exactly what Frankenstein was hoping for. 

Ellen Frankenstein: “The communities need to try and have a dialogue about what they want, and how you find balance if there is such a thing. So you can support, we can support our economies. But we need to do it in a way that makes the place that we love — the places we love and care about remain the places that we love and care about.”  

Her statement was greeted with an enthusiastic hoot.

Link to KHNS FM story

Cruise Boom: Video Librarian Review→

J Zimmerman, February 5, 2024

Cruise Boom: A Community on the Cusp of Change delves into the struggle of Sitka, Alaska, a picturesque town nestled amidst glacier-frosted mountains and the island-studded sea. Facing the impending surge of cruise ship tourism, the tight-knit community grapples with a profound dilemma. A large public cruise ship dock is opposed by locals–twice rejected during elections–leading a local business to construct a private dock with the support of a global cruise ship corporation.

As the town teeters on the brink of being overwhelmed by tourists, residents confront the complex interplay of economic opportunity and the preservation of their community's essence. Against the backdrop of a once-booming pulp mill and a still-booming fishing industry now without a supporting dock, this 55-minute documentary portrays the shifting dynamics of a town contemplating the impacts and benefits of global tourism. Cruise Boom raises critical questions about who truly benefits, the threshold of sustainable tourism, and the essence of hospitality in the face of a changing world.

My sole complaint about this film is its lack of concrete information. Topics such as taxes, job creation, and economic opportunity are thrown around a lot, but we never get the numbers. I wish the city council members, business owners, and local activists interviewed for this documentary had been given the space to discuss the quantitative side of their issues and plans.

While their emotional arguments and rhetoric are very well documented and important to understanding the multifaceted issues of modern tourism in small communities, the lack of economic information especially makes it difficult for the viewer to understand the full scope of the problem and proposed solutions.

That being said, Cruise Boom is an outstanding documentary. The pacing is excellent, and the interviews are intimate and compelling. Cruise Boom would fit right in public library collections about tourism and economics. Highly Recommended.

Where does this documentary belong on public library shelves?

Cruise Boom belongs among tourism, economics, and environmental documentary titles.

What kind of film series could use this title?

Cruise Boom belongs in any film series about tourism and small-town economies.

Link to Video Librarian Review

Cruise Boom Program Provocative in Juneau

Tuesday, 14 November 2023

EDITOR’S NOTE: In case anybody is wondering, the cruise industry and its impacts are hot issues in affected communities. Following is a story in the Juneau Empire that brought that community’s divide on mass tourism into sharp focus. It is about the reaction of a Juneau audience after an academic presentation on local management, and the showing of Sitka film maker Ellen Frankenstein’s documentary “Cruise Boom.” A similar program is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the UAS Sitka campus.

By Mark Sabatini

Juneau Empire

A tourist departs a cruise ship in the documentary “Cruise Boom,” which was screened Friday as part of an Evening at Egan presentation at the University of Alaska Southeast. The film is also scheduled to be shown Saturday at the Gold Town Theater. (Courtesy of Artchange Inc.)

There’s a saying Alaskans don’t care how things are done elsewhere, but clearly a standing-room-only crowd of more than 150 people was quite interested in how other places around the world are limiting cruise ship tourism impacts.

But one reality they were told is some of those methods aren’t practical and/or legal in the United States, and thus — to the grumbling of some in the audience — working with the industry is necessary if solutions are going to happen.

“In those countries they’re more socialistic and they depend upon the government to solve the problems,” said Jim Powell, an assistant research professor at the University of Alaska Southeast, presenting his findings during an Evening at Egan event Friday night at UAS. “They don’t go to the industry first…In our country I think you solve the problems by partnerships between the industry because they have a lot of knowledge about what they’re doing. And then also it’s us — it’s the public and the people we elect.”

But a response by one man in the audience during a question-and-answer session at the end of the event was indicative of the skepticism many attendees had about such a concept.

“They totally played us and I don’t really want to be talking about a healthy partnership,” he said, arguing abusive and misleading actions by the industry have occurred locally for many years. “They should be taxed somehow…They pounded our infrastructure. They pounded every single part of it, and our taxes keep going up and up and up.”

“I do not trust these corporations one iota. They are not our partners.”

The crowd packed into the Egan Lecture Hall at UAS to hear Powell’s presentation, watch the documentary “Cruise Boom” about the industry’s impacts on Sitka in 2022 after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, and participate in the Q&A — with many attendees making impassioned statements rather than asking questions.

The prevailing attitude of the audience was evident from loud applause throughout the room when Power told them Juneau Assembly members cast an informal 6-3 vote on Monday in favor of reducing cruise tourism from the record 1.66 million passengers who visited this year. There were groans of disbelief when Ellen Frankenstein, director of the documentary, said Royal Caribbean is pledging the bigger ships it’s building “are going to be more environmentally friendly.”

“One of the Royal Caribbean reps wanted to see the film and I said ‘come down to the screening and talk with everybody,’ but they didn’t make it,” she quipped.

One person expressing hopefulness about the event as it neared its end — acknowledging it’s “probably going to be an unpopular opinion here” — was Serene Hutchinson, manager of Juneau Tours and Whale Watch, who said “I feel like for the first time I kind of see a little glimpse of what could be possible if we do work together.”

One example, she said, is stakeholders should go beyond focusing on how many cruise ships are in town and consider how long they are in port. She said a megaship that stays half a day, for instance, involves the stressful rushing of fewer passengers for a tour compared to a full day in port when more visitors can participate at a more relaxed pace.

“I was expecting to feel really horrible at this and I don’t, so I appreciate that,” Hutchinson told Powell and Frankenstein. “And please know that I am friends with so many in the industry, and we want to talk and we want to work together. We, just like you, take it very personally because we’re feeding our children through this as well.”

Powell, during his presentation, noted Juneau has taken some pioneering steps to limit cruise tourism impacts including being the first port in Alaska to implement a head tax decades ago, plus the voluntary five-ship-a-day agreement reached with the industry scheduled to go into effect next year.

“There are three others in the world besides us” who’ve signed a similar negotiated operating agreement with the industry, he said.

Among the other ports Powell discussed during his presentation were Bergen, Norway; Visby, Sweden; Akureyri, Iceland; and Nome, which is preparing for a major expansion of both its port capacity and ship activity. He noted Norway has implemented a zero-emissions requirement by 2026 and the Iceland port has imposed a limit of 5,000 passengers a day, but such measures in Juneau pose difficulties.

Putting a set limit on the number of passengers, for example, would likely be illegal due to the right of people to freely travel between states, Powell said, echoing a position taken by many local leaders.

Instead, he said, “my approach really is to look at things in a sustainability format.” He said there has been progress in a variety of ways since cruise ship tourism began its massive expansion during the 1990s — such as best practices agreements, and technology that allows better pollution control and monitoring — but one constant difficulty is “there’s a power imbalance.”

“We’re a small community,” he said. “These are big, billion-dollar industries.”

One way officials in Juneau and other regional ports are working to shift that balance is through partnerships, such as a first-ever “maritime green corridor” aimed at accelerating zero-emission ships and operations between Alaska, British Columbia and Washington. Powell said. Ketchikan, Sitka, Skagway and Haines have also joined the partnership.

Ultimately, Powell said, input from everyone involved will be needed if a balanced approach in the future is going to occur.

“What are the kind of limits of acceptable change?” he said. “What do we want to do? Because the bottom line of all this is if we don’t create our future somebody else is going to create it. And we’ve been managing it for quite a while. But how do we manage it enough? That’s up to us as a community.”

Link to Sitka Sentinel article

Link to article in Juneau Empire

‘Cruise Boom’ showing in Juneau before sailing back to Sitka screen

Tourists explore downtown Sitka in the documentary “Cruise Boom,” which is screening Friday at the University of Alaska Southeast and Saturday at the Gold Town Theater. (Courtesy of Artchange Inc.)

By Meredith Jordan Wednesday, November 8, 2023

“Cruise Boom” is a documentary about the community of Sitka as the number of cruise ship passengers explodes post-COVID-19, leaving it to grapple with the “possibilities and perils” of large-scale tourism.

In the process, the 55-minute movie asks questions that should ripple throughout Southeast, and even farther, as other communities face the shift to “mass industrial tourism,” said director Ellen Frankenstein, who made the movie through Artchange Inc., a nonprofit that organizes media, storytelling and community art projects. “I really want communities to think about where they are on the tourism journey.”

“Cruise Boom” will be shown twice this weekend, the first time Friday as part of the Evening at Egan series at the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS). That will include a 20-minute talk by assistant research professor Jim Powell before the screening, and a question-and-answer session after. The film will also be screened at Gold Town Theater on Saturday afternoon.

“I think it’s important because the community must determine its own future, and it’s the only way that communities have been able to balance the benefits and impacts that come from cruise ship tourism,” said Powell. The documentary received some funding from a National Science Foundation grant that went to UAS, along with four other universities, to study positive and negative impacts to communities from cruise ship tourism.

The documentary starts with the summer of 2021 and follows through the fall-winter of 2022, when Sitka saw the numbers of cruise ship visitors jump from just under 34,000 to just over 379,000, said Frankenstein, who first moved to Sitka 29 years ago.

“Cruise Boom” isn’t a bash of the industry, but stresses the importance of planning for change, she added. The goal is for it to be “thought-provoking,” while asking tough questions, like how much is too much.

“It includes multiple sides, business owners, Royal Caribbean reps, members of the community,” she said. “It tries to be balanced, but when you ask about certain things it may not be viewed as balanced by certain sides.”

Showing it in Juneau on Friday and Saturday gives her the ability to gauge audience reaction before it heads back to Sitka for a community screening Nov. 15. They are working with distributor New Day Films for wider release.

Juneau experienced that same huge shift in visitors between those same years on an even grander scale — jumping from 124,600 in 2021 to 1.2 million in 2022 — but it wasn’t new. Some 1.33 million cruise passengers visited in 2019, pre-pandemic, and the city had long adapted its retail, tour and entertainment options to accommodate tourists.

Sitka is much smaller, and the change much newer. Cruise ships were still bringing passengers by tenders to Sitka in 2010, with working ships using lightering docks to move cargo.

The Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal came online in 2011, seeing its first ship the following year, but it took the rest of the decade to build up. A big expansion added a 1,300-foot dock, which can accommodate two 1,000-foot cruise ships. The pandemic slowed its development, but it came online in a big way in 2021. The following year was its first full post-pandemic year of business.

Frankenstein, who has directed a mix of short and long films, started capturing responses of residents and others with the influx of tourists in 2021. She showed the rough cut to about 125 Sitka residents in the fall of 2022.

“The reaction was heartfelt,” she recalled. “There were testimonials, pros and cons, people asking ‘What happened to Sitka?’”

It took a year to get to a final cut, an editing process that included tightening and moving some scenes around, along with the sound mix and other finish work needed for it to be presentable to larger audiences.

The time was also needed to come up with funding, “or underfunding,” Frankenstein quipped. In addition to the funding from NSF, Artchange Inc. has received money from Rasmussen Foundation and the Sitka Alaska Permanent Charitable Trust. There have also been contributions from individuals and smaller groups, she said.

Know & Go

What: “Cruise Boom”

Where/When:

UAS Egan Library, 11066 Auke Lake Way, Friday, Nov. 10, 7 p.m. Includes a short talk by assistant research professor Jim Powell as part of the Evening at Egan series. There is no charge for the event. https://uas.alaska.edu/eganlecture/index.html.

Gold Town Theater, 171 Shattuck Way, Saturday, Nov. 11, 4 p.m. Suggested donation at the door: $10. https://bpt.me/6128055.

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'Cruise Boom' Screening Draws a Big Crowd

By Sentinel Staff, published Friday, 17 November 2023

In the second event of the week on cruise ship tourism, 175 people gathered at UAS-Sitka Wednesday to watch a screening of “Cruise Boom,” and engage in small group discussions.

Filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein was pleased with the standing room only turnout, and is planning another screening of the film in December. After the Wednesday show, she and UAS-Sitka director Paul Kraft asked participants four questions  for tabletop discussions, although Frankenstein said people generally just wanted to have a good talk about cruise ship tourism, over treats and coffee.

Filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein talks to the standing-room-only audience at UAS Sitka Campus following the screening of her documentary “Cruise Boom” Wednesday night. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

The questions:

– What scenes, images or comments in the documentary linger or resonate with you? What does the film provoke? 

– “Cruise Boom” is set in a time frame from summer of 2021 to last fall, in 2022. What do we know now, a year later, that we didn’t know then?

– What knowledge, perspective, or experience do we have now that might inform us moving forward? 

– What would you add or change in an epilogue or afterword?

– How does our experience here impact your thoughts on how and where your travel?

The screening followed a city-sponsored open house earlier this week, asking for feedback in areas affected by cruise ship tourism, including community, economy, recreation and environment, and on cruise numbers and management priorities. More than 200 attended.

The screening on Wednesday was sponsored by Artchange, UAS and the Sitka Film Society.

Frankenstein, who made the film with Atman Mehta, showed “Cruise Boom” twice in Juneau at Goldtown Nickelodeon, which drew some 300 people combined. Other shows are in the works for Homer, Ketchikan and Yorktown, Virginia, all of which are cruise ship ports.

“Sitka’s not alone,” Frankenstein said Thursday. “And from the response so far it’s a good conversation starter for communities trying to shape how they deal with cruise ship tourism.”

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