There will be no daily or seasonal limit on the number of cruise passengers visiting Sitka, one of Alaska’s most popular port of calls along the state’s pristine Inside Passage, at least for now, following the rejection of a ballot measure on May 28, 2025.
By a huge margin, voters in Sitka gave a thumbs-down to a citizen petition that called for a 4,500 per person per day cap and a 300,000 annual arrivals cap.
On a typical day during high season, debarkations at the Port of Sitka reach about 8,000, and annual cruise visitors top 600,000, so the measure would have cut the visitor number roughly in half.
Besides the passenger caps, the petition sought to shrink the destination’s official cruise season, allowing ships to call between May and September. Currently, many cruise lines deploy their ships to Alaska starting in April and continuing into mid-October.
If passed the proposed ordinance would also have set aside one day each week when no ship accommodating more than 250 guests would be allowed to call. All caps and limitations were to take effect in 2026.
Unofficial results released by Sitka’s municipal clerk show that 73%, or 2,071 votes, rejected the measure while 27%, or 773 votes, were in favor.
The proposed law included new requirements for cruise lines, too, calling for all cruise ships to obtain an annual Disembarkation Permit from the city, and count and report the number of guests who leave the ship in Sitka. Violations of those rules would result in hefty fines and/or revocation of a ship’s permit.
Among those who opposed the ballot measure was Chris McGraw, owner of the Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal and founder of the local group Safeguard Sitka’s Future, who told local media outlet KCAW that the election outcome shows the local population values the benefits of cruise tourism.
The Sitka organization Small Town Soul had proposed the ordinance and has worked for three years to get the measure placed on the election ballot. The first three attempts failed, for various reasons, but the fourth time succeeded.
Task Force Pointed Up Residents’ Concerns About Cruise Tourism
Sitka local government in 2023 established a tourism task force designed to gather opinion on the benefits and drawbacks of cruise tourism to the destination. In its 2024 report, Tourism Task Force Recommendations, the group identified five areas of concern.
They included the loss of Sitka’s small-town feel during cruise season; fear of losing community character and becoming a seasonal community; and safety issues tied to local transportation and traffic congestion.
Also, residents cited the overcrowding of recreational sites due to cruise shore excursions, and environmental impacts such as noise, litter, and emissions from cruise ships.
Read Also: How Much Does an Alaska Cruise Cost?
The voting outcome in Sitka followed a similar rejection of cruise tourism limits in Juneau just a week earlier.
A citizen petition in Juneau, Alaska’s capital city and a port call on virtually every Alaska cruise itinerary, sought to create a limit of five large ships visiting per day and a daily debarkation cap of 16,000 passengers. The measure would have set an annual arrivals limit of 1.5 million, and like Sitka’s measure, called for a cruise season starting in May and ending at the close of September.
But the petition failed to gather the required number of signatures to move forward.
