Tourism

For the past 18 years, the Alaska travel industry has experienced steady growth during the peak season of May through September. In the summer of 1990, the state welcomed 690,000 visitors. By 2008, that number had grown to more than 1.7 million. Unfortunately that growth has stopped. The estimate for summer 2009 was 1.6 million visitors. The prognosis for the summer of 2010 is just as bleak. The reasons behind the 100,000 dropped visitors include Mount Redoubt volcano alerts, H1N1 flu panic, the reduction of allowable halibut catches for sport charter operations in Southeast, and the global economic crisis.
Tourism supports about 40,000 jobs for Alaskans, on an annual average basis. Perhaps half of these jobs are in restaurants, hotels, lodges, bars, sightseeing businesses and other establishments that provide services to tourists. Additional jobs are indirectly generated when Alaska households and businesses spend their tourism-related income in the economy.

Source: Ron Peck, Alaska Travel Industry Association, ABM Industry Outlook, January 2010; Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage, Scott Goldsmith, Dec. 2008