Fairbanks 2025 summer tourism season begins
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU/KTVF) - With the Riverboat Discovery already open as of Monday, and Pioneer Park holding opening weekend events from Saturday through Memorial Day, the 2025 summer tourism season is kicking off in full force in Fairbanks.
According to Scott McCrea, President and CEO of tourism facilitator Explore Fairbanks, post-COVID summers saw an increase in summer tourism in Fairbanks, but visitor numbers have flattened out in the last couple of years.
At the same time, the winter months in Fairbanks have seen record visitor numbers, according to McCrea.
August now stands as the peak month for summer visitation, but early booking numbers from hotels and tour companies are painting an alarming picture for this year’s tourism season.
Tourists arrive in the Golden Heart City in a variety of ways, including via automobile up the Alaska Highway, the railroad from Southcentral Alaska, and through direct flight into Fairbanks International Airport.
These methods have remained proportionally the same, McCrea said, adding that it is hard to gauge how many visitors come as a result of the cruise season, which is expecting record numbers this summer.
In addition to some of the historic tourist attractions — like Pioneer Park, the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Museum of the North — McCrea pointed to new products that he predicts will expand visitation numbers, especially in the spring and fall, including the 8 Star Events Center, which opened in November 2024, and the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum, which is set to reopen its doors this fall after combining its collection with the Pioneer Air Museum.
“We have a lot of great prospects ahead of us as far as growing that meetings and convention market, which really, that’s important because that really kind of helps in terms of us being a year-round destination,” McCrea said. “Our softer months tend to be the months of April and October. Those happen to be big meetings and convention months.”
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
Copyright 2025 KTUU. All rights reserved.