We’ve got questions, including:
What goes into being hospitable to visitors, and what responsibilities does the tourism industry have towards the communities they visit?
How do the benefits get shared and how can tourism work for visitors and locals alike?
What responsibility do visitors have about their impacts and choices when they travel?
While more tourists surely means more revenue, how does this compare to the costs imposed upon the a place?
How can residents best understand and shape what might be a period of transformative change to the community they’ve known?
NEW! This short guide is intended both for small groups and community screenings. It includes both general, book club like questions and community discussion questions, appropriate for generating discussions in places facing an increase in tourism, a planning process or economic growth in a new sector. It’s also meant to generate conversations about how we travel and our expectations as tourists,
IN THE WORKS: a longer guide designed to help teachers and students and communities develop an understanding of cruise ship tourism, globalization and community solutions and responses. Discussion points, and additional resources will be provided.
CRUISE BOOM SHORTS
The experience of producing and sharing the episodic series, 14 Miles, inspired us to create and share two shorts early on in the project to encourage local discussion.
Short 1: Preparation
What does it take to prepare for an influx of tourists? Can those preparations be beneficial to locals and to visitors? Where will the workforce and the housing to serve visitors come from? How do you go from an extra low passenger-count in pandemic times to more visitors than ever before?
“The only thing that matters is can you move people around efficiently? Do you have the infrastructure to support them? And is the community on board with it? And every community has to answer that on their own.“ - Andrew Cremata, Mayor Skagway
Short 2: Benefits and Impacts
With Sitka expecting a record number of cruise tourists next summer, how should we think about the impacts and benefits of such an influx? Since the cruise industry is extremely profitable, should more be done for those profits to be re-invested back into destinations like Sitka? Or should the town be content that more dollars will be spent in town next year? And most important: will the quest for economic development affect the character of the town?"
“I’ve seen so many places just get annihilated. And what I’ve noticed is that a lot of these cruise ports here in Alaska, they have companies coming in that have nothing to do with Alaska. Like, why are they here? We’re having less and less really cool, authentic experiences. I want to see resident owned businesses.” - Cruise Tourist