How Juneau Avoided an Overtourism Crisis While Growing Cruise Passengers

Juneau has achieved what most cruise destinations consider almost impossible.

It’s grown its cruise passenger numbers more than three-fold over 28 years without triggering the kind of resident backlash now roiling Barcelona, Venice and many other ports.

The Alaska capital welcomed approximately 500,000 cruise passengers in 1997, the year it launched its Tourism Best Management Practices program (TBMP).

By 2025, that number had reached 1.67 million, an increase of 234 percent.

Yet a 2025 survey showed that over a third of Juneau’s 30,000 residents still believe tourism’s positive impacts outweigh the negatives, a remarkable result for a community hosting around 1.7 million visitors annually.

The secret, according to those who built the program, lies not in any single policy but in a three-decade commitment to collaboration, voluntary compliance and genuine responsiveness to resident concerns.

“I don’t think there are any specific guidelines in the program or stand-alone initiatives that have allowed TBMP to create this very effective buffer as cruise passenger numbers have increased,” said Kirby Day, government and community relations representative for Princess Cruises, Holland America Line and Seabourn in Alaska.

Day helped spearhead and then led the TBMP program for more than 20 years while working full time for the cruise industry.

“I firmly believe that the critical aspects of the program are buy-in from the city management and assembly, buy-in from local tour operators and cruise lines, and buy-in from the community who have these concerns but are willing to work within the TBMP program to provide feedback, constructive criticism and come forth with ideas,” he said.

The program launched in 1997 when the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly allowed local tour operators to create a program that addressed concerns in a non-regulatory manner.

“Realizing that to be able to continue to grow our businesses, live in and raise a family in Juneau, and provide substantial economic benefits, we must be willing to listen to residents and address challenges that face a small, 30,000-person community that hosts 1.7 million visitors each summer,” Day said.

The TBMP operates through a tourism hotline that matches reported issues, complaints and compliments via an impartial contractor to tour operators and establishes a dialogue or addresses areas of concern with companies operating in Juneau.

Program participation is voluntary and the guidelines are reviewed annually.

From Travel Juneau’s perspective, specific guidelines have proven particularly effective, said Liz Perry, president and chief executive officer at Travel Juneau.

“Guidelines protecting areas from commercial use, specific trails and neighborhoods, and managing traffic flow have certainly helped in this regard,” she said.

The 2025 TBMP guidelines document runs to more than 100 specific practices covering everything from backup alarm noise levels on commercial vehicles to helicopter flight paths, from downtown staging area traffic patterns to marine mammal approach distances.

Some examples illustrate the granular details.

Such as, all commercial passenger vehicles in designated A-zone areas must use white noise backup alarms rather than traditional beeping sounds.

Tour operators agree to avoid specific residential neighborhoods or trails and marine tour operators follow strict guidelines for wildlife viewing distances.

The program also includes an internal observation system that encourages participants to notify each other if they observe guidelines not being followed.

Participating businesses require employees to sign TBMP agreements certifying they have read, understood and intend to abide by the practices.

The 2026 season marks a significant milestone as the first with daily passenger caps actually in effect.

Juneau now limits arrivals to a maximum of five large ships daily, carrying up to 16,000 passengers, with Saturdays capped at 12,000 passengers.

“It is still too early to see the overall effects of the daily passenger cap. We have only had 13 ships over the past 10 days,” Day said in early May.

“We will realize the results of this agreed-upon limit as the summer goes along and as we come to the end of a long, five-month visitor season.”

“I believe that the passenger limit will allow for a more consistent and manageable flow of pedestrians and tour vehicles on a daily basis. This will not only benefit residents frequenting downtown, using our streets and recreating on the water, but will also provide a comfortable guest experience as visitors spend their day in Juneau,” he explained.

Day also added that there have been some initial concerns from both cruise lines and local businesses, but in the spirit of TBMP, all parties have recognized the importance of listening to Juneau citizens and finding ways to collaborate with the city to meet expectations and address any issues.

Perry said Travel Juneau partners are cautiously optimistic about this season, though it remains too early to assess the full impact of the caps.

The program has certainly attracted a lot of international attention.

Juneau has shared TBMP at no cost with destinations worldwide, from Portland, Maine, to Sweden, Norway, the Bahamas, American Samoa and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Other Alaska ports including Ketchikan, Wrangell, Sitka, Valdez, Whittier and Skagway have also developed their own versions of TBMP.

For destinations facing overtourism crises, the lesson from Juneau is deceptively simple but requires long-term commitment.

“Be responsive to the needs of your community while first looking at behaviors that the industry is already addressing,” Perry said.

Day has emphasized that starting small is the way to get a similar initiative up and running for the first time.

“We always encourage interested destinations to start small. Our program is very mature and has been around a long time now. So just start small, maybe pick 10 to 15 things that you can successfully address and then get the program off the ground that way,” he said.

“When TBMP started in 1997, we had only 18 guidelines. Today we have over 100. So don’t be intimidated by the Juneau program.Rather just build the program in a manner that addresses your residents’ concerns about growth. Build trust from residents and industry players and this will ultimately help all the stakeholders to collaborate for success.”

The program’s effectiveness depends mostly on genuine partnership.

In 1997, the Juneau Assembly chose to allow the industry to self-regulate itself through voluntary guidelines rather than just imposing mandatory restrictions.

That choice created ownership and accountability within the industry itself, combined with a transparent feedback mechanism through the tourism hotline that gives residents a direct channel to voice concerns.

The result has been nearly three decades of sustained growth without the breakdown in community relations that has forced many other ports to impose emergency restrictions or outright bans on cruise ships.

As global cruise tourism continues to expand and destinations worldwide grapple with overtourism, Juneau’s experience offers a successful blueprint, one that requires patience, genuine collaboration with all stakeholders and a willingness to prioritize long-term community sustainability over short-term growth.