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

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’ 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.

Link to original article