In a public forum last month, more than 40 locals voiced their hopes and concerns. Some invoked horror stories of Southeast towns overrun with a predatory industry, while others said they crave increased business.

After holding steady for the past decade at eight or nine ships each season, the number doubled to 16 this year. In 2009, some 23 ships will sail to Kodiak.

In a small town like Kodiak, cruise ships do not come and go unnoticed. When the Diamond Princess called in Kodiak in September, its 2,670 passengers raised the population of Kodiak city by about 40 percent for the day.

Harbormaster Marty Owen's take on the cruise industry is a neat summary of the considerations weighed by the rest of town.

“They help pay the bills, I'll say that,” Owen said, referring to the $15,400 the Diamond Princess paid in docking fees for its seven-hour stay. The Diamond Princess also employed local longshoremen.

But the cash doesn't come without a price.

“They're a lot of work to cater to; kind of a high-maintenance customer,” Owen said.

Post 9/11 regulations require barriers and fences be set up the day before a ship arrives. This requires a lot of work and planning by harbor staff, but also puts the dock off limits to other boats. Aside from cruise ships, Kodiak's Pier 2 is used by large fishing vessels and the state ferry M/V Kennicott.

“If you bring in the Diamond Princess, which is nearly 1,000 feet long, you know it gobbles up the whole dock,” Owen said. “There's two days where fishermen are displaced.”

Owen said balancing the needs of fishermen and the cruise ship industry was not a problem this year.

“It's manageable right now. What could become a problem though, let's say it doubles the following year, and it doubles the year after that. Where do you draw the line? I think more than a couple a week would start to tax us a little bit.”

Jack Maker, City Council member and gift shop owner, said tourism is one of many important elements keeping the Kodiak economy afloat.

“We've lost a lot in our fisheries, and we need to take advantage of any industry out there that can bring some of the money that we've lost in our economy back,” Maker said.

Maker's gift shop can count on an additional $300 to $500 in sales on days cruise ships are in town. Yet he is quick to emphasize cruise ships in no way determine the fate of his store.

“The general public's perception is that cruise ships are big money for retail businesses, but they really aren't,” Maker said, adding one fishing crewman coming off a successful trip can spend hundreds of dollars in a matter of minutes.

“You can't make it here without every demographic that's out there providing customers,” Maker said. He said cruise ship customers are constrained by baggage limits on their flights home, unlike local customers or ferry passengers.

“The locals are our bread and butter,” Maker said.

Janet Buckingham, director of the Kodiak Island Convention and Visitors Bureau, said Kodiak has yet to realize the full potential offered by the cruise ship industry.

“I think there are opportunities to be had, being real creative,” Buckingham said.

Visitors off the ships usually have eight to 10 hours on Kodiak. Buckingham said tourists come into the KICVB office asking about island and boat tours that simply aren't being offered.

Cruise ship passengers on average spend less than independent travelers to Alaska, according to the Alaska Visitor Statistics Program. But because independent travelers to Kodiak often take expensive sightseeing, hunting and fishing charters, Buckingham said, they spend $2,062 per person, more than twice the state average.

Shopping is a close second to tours and entertainment.

“I've spoken to some businesses that say they count on the cruise traffic to make their whole season,” Buckingham said. “It can't be denied that they do bring revenue.”

One man at the public forum wants to see a shopping center where the cruise ships dock.

“I'd like to make a couple hundred thousand dollars off these people when they come to town,” he said. “I'd like to see every cruise ship come here. I'd like to make money. But keep it localized and keep it centralized in one area.”

For every local business owner pleased with cruise tourism, another could gladly do without.

One business owner said cruise ship passengers almost always come in, look around and ask questions, before leaving without making a purchase. Their presence makes him drop work for up to 20 minutes, often in vain.

The Kodiak Island Brewery used to offer free tasting and tours. Owner Ben Millstein said cruise passengers took full advantage.

“It made us really busy and almost none of them spent any money,” Millstein said. “It made me feel like just about not showing up when cruise ships were in town.”

The brewery now charges $5 for tasting and tours, which Millstein said helps offset the cost.

“It's a busier day, but the sales are a little bit more labor-intensive. They're not spending a lot of money,” Millstein said. “But the people are nice and I'm not complaining.”

Asked to describe Kodiak's allure for their customers, a spokesperson for Princess Cruises called Kodiak a “hidden gem.”

Indeed, conversations with passengers in town with the Tahitian Princess in September revealed awe and admiration for the people who live on Kodiak, based on a mythologized view of what life here is like.

Despite the revenues that cruise ship tourism may bring, many Kodiakans hope their town stays hidden.

“I have a friend in Ketchikan,” Sylvia Panzarella said at the public forum. “She gave me a little forewarning to pass on.”

Panzarella said the Ketchikan waterfront is full of jewelry and kitschy stores owned by cruise ship companies. High rents forced local businesses out of downtown. Locals no longer go to the waterfront, and in the winter, downtown becomes a ghost town.

“It's fun the way we have it now, and I feel like it's manageable. I'd like to keep Kodiak real, because there are many places in the southeast that have become Disneyland,” Panzarella said.

Harry Dodge, author and owner of a remote lodge in Kodiak's Uyak Bay, worried about the impact of cruise ships on Kodiak's unique appeal to extended-stay visitors.

“I'm not against cruise ships, but I am concerned about the limits,” Dodge said. “Many of our guests have expressed appreciation for the fact that Kodiak is a working town and not a tourist trap.”

Dodge said the number of cruise ships should not rise above the projected 2009 level.

“We have the opportunity to preserve Kodiak's integrity, to keep it a special and unique place while welcoming guests from around the world,” he said.

A common theme throughout the forum was the need to come up with an ideal number of cruise ships.

“If we can establish an amount of cruise ships that we want to come to Kodiak, then people could build an infrastructure around that amount of people,” said Mark Majdic.

Owen told the audience the cruise industry in Kodiak is small compared to towns in Southeast.

“We're kind of self-limiting here,” he said. “We're on an island, out in the middle of the North Pacific. They really don't like to come here too often.”

Yet towns of yore in Southeast may well have thought the same. Lorene Palmer, president of the Juneau Convention and Visitor's Bureau, said 1 million passengers reached Juneau this year.

“I don't think anyone was really expecting the growth over time,” Palmer said.

Buckingham said Kodiak will see continued growth, too.

“Kodiak is really becoming known as a destination,” she said.

Neither the KICVB nor the city government actively promotes cruise ship tourism.

“We don't seem to really have to,” Buckingham said.

A spokesperson for Princess Cruises did not say whether the company plans to expand its Kodiak-bound fleet in the coming years.

Several people at the forum said Kodiak cannot afford to invest in the cruise industry while its own needs were not being met.

“It concerns me at the same time that we're talking about needing a new high school, that we'd put any money into infrastructure for an industry that we know from other places really doesn't care about our community,” said Mike Sirofchuk.

Another woman agreed, citing the poor state of the road system.

City Manager Linda Freed assured the audience the city shared their priorities.

“My recommendation to the City Council is not to spend any money on improvements for the cruise industry, specifically until we get through this planning process,” she said.

Kodiak Chamber of Commerce president John Whiddon warned against making too many plans and business investments for a fickle industry. He said Kodiak should not assume growth, since a bad economy or high oil prices could stop vessels coming to Kodiak.

“It's not really up to us to decide how we handle the cruise ship industry,” he said.

But several audience members spoke with admiration about Sitka, where they said a grassroots movement led to a limit on the cruise industry.

Freed said she was not certain about the legality of such a limit.

“It is possible that it may be able to be done under city law. They could pass an ordinance,” she said.

Casey Janz expressed the desire for a grassroots campaign to take control of the planning issues surrounding the cruise industry.

“When you go over that point of too much, then what happens? Is it too late?” she asked. “How do we become that grassroots group that determines how we want to see it happen here, instead of having it happen to us? It doesn't sound like at this point there's anything in place for us to have any say in it,” Janz said.