In 2025, a new fee will be passed on to cruise passengers who visit the Port of Haines.
The cruise port in Alaska is adding its first ever passenger fee to generate revenue for port maintenance and other needs around the dock.
Not far from Glacier Bay Park in Alaska is the small town of about 2,500 residents. Haines, Alaska isn’t as well-known as cruise ports like Ketchikan, Skagway, and Juneau.
The port has historically received roughly 20-30 cruise ships per year and in 2024 will receive about 100,000 cruise passengers in total.
The schedule for 2025 is already heating up with 13 cruise ships visiting in May, 17 in June, 18 in July, and 14 in August. These are the busiest months of the Alaska cruise season.
According to news reports, the Haines Assembly has recently approved a new tariff on cruise passengers.
Tourism director for Haines, Reba Hylton, stated that the port didn’t have a fee in place at all.
“So that was kind of like a big, big red flag to me when knowing that the existing cruise ship dock needed some maintenance. And you know, you want to know how you’re going to fix things, or how you’re going to make things better. And when there’s no pot of money specifically targeted to do that, for me, bringing forward a port fee was a must,” Hylton said.
Initially the fee will be $9 per cruise passenger in 2025. It will increase to $12 in 2027 and again to $13 in 2029.
A ship like Ruby Princess which will visit the port in 2025 will have about 3,000 passengers, providing about $27,000 in port fees.
The new fee has been in the works for about half a year.
After going through several stages of development, port officials settled on an agreement to put into place.
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