Plugging into federal money<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n“All of our indications suggest all the adults will be vaccinated, that level of vaccinations will be very high,” Salerno said.<\/p>\n
The CDC’s conditional sail order still requires cruise lines to make arrangements with local communities and medical facilities there over what to do in the event of an outbreak. Salerno noted that even vaccinated people have tested positive for COVID-19, but cruise lines are required to be prepared.<\/p>\n
“Those types of arrangements are made in advance, and they’re well understood by the crew what measures would need to be taken,” Salerno said. “There’s a whole list of precautionary measures that work in combination with each other. You’d be pretty hard-pressed to find the same level of protection in any other vacation venue.”<\/p>\n
Some cruise lines have begun using technologies such as cashless payments and touchless door locks that will hopefully decrease the spread of germs. It’s those kinds of technologies Salerno said would probably outlast the pandemic as the industry plans for public health issues in the future.<\/p>\n
The first large cruise ship, Norwegian Cruise Line’s Serenade of the Seas, is set to arrive in Juneau on Friday, July 23, and while state and local governments have celebrated their return, the ships and the tourism industry aren’t universally loved in the community. A petition to put three ballot initiatives severely limiting the schedule for cruise ships was circulated earlier this year but was met with strong resistance from business groups.<\/p>\n
Salerno said he’s aware of the tension that can exist between cruise ship companies and local authorities and said that’s an area where both sides need to work together. But those relationships are usually negotiated on a company by company basis, he said, and CLIA as a trade organization isn’t necessarily involved.<\/p>\n
“As a general rule the industry does put a lot of emphasis on community acceptability,” Salerno said.<\/p>\n
Venice, Italy, recently announced it would ban large cruise ships from sailing into the city beginning Aug. 1, the Associated Press reported, with local authorities citing the impact of the ships on the local environment.<\/p>\n
“Venice is a good example of how the industry and local authorities really have to work together. We’ve been looking for alternative routes to Venice for years, we want the local communities to welcome us and not view cruise ships with a degree of apprehension.”<\/p>\n
Sustainability is a high priority for the industry, according to Salerno, who said a lot of research is being put into cleaner-burning fuels such as Liquid Natural Gas and reducing carbon footprints. Most modern cruise ships have or can be retrofitted to plug into shoreside power, Salerno said, and while only a few ports have currently have the capability, CLIA believes the practice is going to grow.<\/p>\n
Plugging into shoreside power means ships can shut off their engines while in port and not discharge exhaust into the air. It has been a priority for several groups in Juneau, including the city government. There’s only one electrified dock in Juneau and it’s owned by Princess Cruise Lines, but the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly just approved a match for possible federal funding to electrify two city-owned docks. Norwegian Cruise Line has said electrification is a priority for the company’s planned dock project.<\/p>\n
There’s debate over how infrastructure projects that support the industry should be funded, Salerno said, but the industry overall wants to be a partner for long-term success.<\/p>\n
Salerno said the cruise industry brings an enormous economic benefit to Alaska with some surveys showing roughly 60% of the economy of Southeast Alaska being impacted by the tourism industry.<\/p>\n
“That’s pretty significant, it represents a lot to local economies, local jobs that are supported by cruise ships,” Salerno said. “We’re happy to have the opportunity to return to Alaska, it took a lot.”<\/p>\n
• Contact reporter Peter Segall at psegall@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @SegallJnuEmpire.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Post<\/a>-pandemic passengers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":531,"featured_media":72933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[31,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-72932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-cruise-ships","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72932"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=72932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}