Cruise lines recently announced cuts that would bring about 100,000 fewer passengers to Alaska in 2010. Part of the reason is that demand for Alaska is down, so rather than discount to fill the ships, they are reducing the supply of berths to more closely match demand and therefore increase pricing. Carnival Corp has already said that if the 2010 cuts aren't enough to move pricing as much as they need, there will be more reductions in capacity in 2011 for their brands (Carnival, Holland America and Princess).
Now the Fairbanks News Miner reports that interest in travel to Alaska is apparently waning because an annual blitz of television shows which spotlight Alaska and normally generates a surge of bookings has failed to produce that flurry of bookings this year.
Meanwhile the state's citizens continue to push for measures to increase the costs for cruise lines operating in Alaska (see our earlier CND article), making it more profitable for cruise lines to deploy their ships elsewhere.
