April 02, 2009
Thursday

Mr. Edwardson is correct in his assessment that Alaska's $50 head tax is being used by some of the cruise lines as an excuse to pull a few ships from the Alaska run in the next year or two, and that it has little meaning for the average tourist. Try checking out www.cruisecritic.com. Click on Boards, and then under Ports of Call, click on Alaska. On about page 6, there are two threads dealing with this topic. Nearly all of the cruisers who responded to this topic clearly stated that a fifty-dollar tax had absolutely no effect on their decision to cruise or not cruise to Alaska. Several of them said they had no idea there even was a $50 tax. They are far more concerned about the rising cost of the airfare to get to their embarkation points in Seattle and Vancouver than they are about this fee.

The cruise industry will send its ships where people will pay them to sail. When the economy improves and more people can afford a cruise to Alaska, the missing ships will be back. Alaska hasn t got the warm sunshine, balmy breezes, and white-sand beaches that attract tourists to the Caribbean; we have to protect our clean air and water, our scenery and wildlife, and our small port communities. Fifty dollars per person is a small price to pay, and clearly it is a price visitors are willing to pay, regardless of the protests of the management of a couple of the big cruise lines.

Suzan Thompson
Ketchikan, AK

About: "I've found that cruisecritic.com is a good website to use as a resource if you're wondering how people view cruises to Alaska and what it is they want to see and do while in Ketchikan."

Received March , 2009 - Published April 02, 2009

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Tour ship head tax By Chas Edwardson

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