30/10/2024
How will Alaska authorities view MSC's first ever summer season to the region in 2026 as the guest numbers continue to pile up?
As Alaska battles to contain the impact of cruise tourism, the announcement that MSC Cruises will be sailing there for the first time in summer 2026 will hardly cheer them up.
Cruise lines including Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian signed have already signed an agreement with Juneau tourism officials to help manage the thousands of passengers getting off the boats at the same time and visiting the area.
It is difficult to see how this can be achieved without some kind of ticket ashore lottery.
It is understood that numbers of visitors will be capped at 16,000 from Sunday to Friday, reduced to 12,000 on Saturdays.
That still sounds like a hell of a lot of people to me.
When I visited Alaska onboard Silver Shadow in 2008, cruising as we know it today was pretty much in its infancy, which meant our experience left us with memories to last a lifetime. Sledding with huskies, white water rafting. We and out shipmates almost had the place to ourselves
By the time we visited Santorini with Ponant a few years later, the cruise crush was starting the gather speed.
Five ships spilling many thousands of its guests into this pretty town made it virtually impossible to move a muscle once ashore. For me, it was a nightmare never to be forgotten.
Gianni Onorato, CEO of MSC Cruises, said this week: “By introducing sailings to Alaska we’re further extending our global offering and giving our guests the opportunity to experience this must-see region."
He is right. Alaska is a must-see region, but unless strict number controls are introduced, the guest experience will be further eroded.
