NOTN- As Juneau wraps up another long cruise ship season, Mayor Beth Weldon says the city recently hosted a delegation from Greenland seeking advice on how to develop its own cruise tourism industry.
The delegation met with Juneau officials this week to learn from the capital city’s experience as one of Alaska’s busiest cruise ports.
“Population 58,000 in their whole country, it was a pleasure to talk to them. ” Weldon said, “They are looking at building a couple of docks, and so they’re going around talking to people and hearing what we have to say. So one of the questions is, what have you learned? So some of the things we shared were, control your growth, make sure you bring the community along, make sure you know what’s sacred to the community so you don’t screw that part up.”
Weldon said she also emphasized the importance of maintaining local identity within the tourism economy. “We do well with local people running excursions, and most of our stores are almost all locally owned,” she said. “Instead of just having some place where the cruise ships own everything, or another entity owns everything. But this way, the benefits from the tourism industry certainly helped the locals.”
The conversation came as Juneau’s 2025 cruise season came to a close with the arrival of the final ship on Tuesday afternoon. Weldon said the season provided a welcome boost to the economy, but added that residents are also ready for a little breathing room.