If you like Haines the way it is, you have an investment in tourism and in the 1 percent sales tax that funds our local program.
Tourism happens in Haines on a small and varied scale, and that’s no mistake. It’s the result of 35 years of stops and starts, ideas, ventures, failures and corrections that’s largely been led by our government tourism department and citizen participation.
New tours are reviewed by the public before they’re permitted. The town advertises to the kinds of visitors that residents want to come here. More obtrusive tours – like helicopter skiing – fall under stricter rules and greater scrutiny.
It’s a program that works because the Chilkat Valley can easily get crowded and many people choose to live in Haines because it’s a quieter, more relaxed place than Skagway, Juneau or Ketchikan.
Tourism also works to keep our local stores and businesses afloat, relieving pressure to develop industrial logging and mining schemes. In Haines, we can make money in our valley and enjoy it, too.
The system works. It works well enough that sales tax revenues go up every year. It works well enough that, except for a few months, our stores and restaurants are busy and making money. It works well enough that generations of visitors and tour guides, after seeing our town, have put down roots and moved here, improving the place. And it works well enough that our town supports a variety of homegrown businesses, including three grocery stores and two lumberyards.
An older woman from Switzerland who lived here once said to me, “This place is an island in the world. You have to protect it.”
We also have to protect our tourism program, which has worked for nearly four decades to provide us a beneficial industry. Most of the 1 percent pays for advertising. That’s critical because Haines is situated off the beaten track of most independent and cruise ship visitors.
In recent years, grumblings have been voiced that the 1 percent tax should go away or be used for other municipal needs. “The tourism industry has matured and grown, and now it should stand on its own,” the argument goes. Haines Borough Manager Debra Schnabel has most recently pushed a version of this argument.
It’s built on faulty assumptions, including that local the industry could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars the town spends on promotion.
The local industry can’t afford to raise that kind of money because the wealthiest businesses are cruise ship tour operators, who don’t want or need to spend additional money on advertising. They get their customers through contracts they hold with ships that dock here or in Skagway.
Local stores don’t have the kind of discretionary cash, and even if they did, it’s unclear that they would follow local sentiment on how to spend it.
Tourism directors, working directly for local taxpayers, launched our first marketing efforts to Yukoners. They helped launch our beer festival and Kluane bike ride. They pushed for a cruise dock downtown and enticed the first large ships to dock there. On the whole, they’ve done great work for the town.
As the recent departure of Holland America ships for Skagway demonstrates, the tourism industry is constantly in flux, and the town’s marketing efforts – the 1 percent you pay on groceries – must constantly be shifting to ensure the town gets its share of the visitor market, and the share that it wants.
That requires a full tourism promotion budget and a nimble tourism director who can navigate both local politics and regional and statewide marketing.
A community tourism program is a big job and there are always glitches, but the Haines program has largely worked for 35 years. Let’s not fool with it.