Bar Harbor, Maine, a popular cruise port of call and a stepping stone to Arcadia National Park, is in a active debate regarding the volume of cruise passengers that visit this small town. Some local residents of Bar Harbor have expressed concerned for the sheer vast amount of daily people that disembark from the cruises docked in their town on a daily basis. While tourism and the foot traffic to the local shops can be viewed as a general positive for the towns local economy however, concern are for too many people flooding the town during peak season of September and October, creating large crowds and diminishing the overall experience as a result.
This is not the first time the town of Bar Harbor has debated the crowds from cruise ships. Just this year the town and the cruise industry had reached an agreement to limit the amount of people coming into town from cruise ships for the peak months of September and October to 65,000. Currently, the debate is to further limit tourist from cruises to only 1,000 people a day allowed to disembark. This would drastically decrease the crowds in town, but would it be worth it with the potential loss in sales for the shops? It has been reported that many cruise goers are introduced to the town with it being a port of call and will come back to vacation there as a result. Could limiting the volume of tourist from cruises negatively impact this cycle? What are your thoughts on this hot topic? Let us know in the comments! This debate is being put to vote on November 8th, 2022.
