Alaska Tourism Officials See an Opportunity in Coronavirus

Visit Anchorage is working “a little more aggressively” with travel advisers, cruise providers and other tour operators to promote Alaska, Ms. Saupe said. The message is being sent through newsletters, in phone calls and at trade shows, she said.

The effort to bring more travelers to the state is also meant to make up, somewhat, for the drop in visitors from China.

Since 2013, the number of Chinese tourists to Alaska has increased by more than 70 percent, according to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, with the state’s national parks and the Northern Lights among the main draws. But in recent weeks, as many cities in China are in forced lockdowns, Alaska, like other tourist destinations across the world, has seen a drop in Chinese visitors.

A recent survey conducted by Travel Leaders Network, a network of North American travel agencies, found that about 30 percent of agencies reported “a high to moderate number of cancellations for China and other parts of Asia,” but few cancellations for trips to Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska, supporting the expectation that people still want to travel, just not to Asia.

But not all travelers are sure they’ll want to get on a cruise ship that might have recently been in Asia.

Jennifer Walker, a travel adviser based in Illinois, said that some of her clients, who were interested in traveling to Alaska over the summer, decided to change their trip and travel to the East Coast of the United States because they were worried that the coronavirus could soon reach Alaska.