The sole applicant to provide visitor services for the city, Orca//Killer Creative, has withdrawn its proposal just weeks before the current contract expires.
For years, the city paid the Sitka Chamber of Commerce to run Visit Sitka, the city’s visitor marketing and information program. Under the current contract, the Chamber receives around $600,000 a year to provide those services. But last year, the assembly decided to go back to the drawing board, to update Visit Sitka’s strategy and mission.
Last fall, the assembly drafted a new contract and began soliciting bidders to run the program. In January, the Chamber of Commerce announced it would not be one of them.
The city extended the application window, and Orca//Killer Creative was the only firm to put in a bid. In May, the assembly discussed the company’s application, ultimately voting to send it to the Tourism Commission for further review.
At the assembly meeting on Tuesday (6-10-25), Municipal Administrator John Leach told the assembly that Orca Killer Creative had pulled out of the running. Leach said the city would spend the next couple of weeks transferring Visit Sitka’s digital and physical assets back into the city’s possession before revisiting the future of Visit Sitka. The Sitka Chamber of Commerce’s contract with the city ends on June 30.