Government, construction, and service industries are the largest segments of the local economy. But commercial fishing, tourism, and subsistence on fish and wildlife dominate the forest-dependent economy throughout the region, especially in the rural and Native villages. Logging and wood-processing support a few important communities. Alaska's long-term economic gold mine is tourism, increasingly and effectively promoted on the basis of its unspoiled environment and abundant wildlife. Since statehood, Alaska's annual tourism growth has averaged 10 percent.
Recent trends point to even higher growth rates.
Tourism in Southeast Alaska averaged an annual increase of over 20 percent since 1988, with a cumulative increase in revenue of 108 percent. But some tourism businesses now find themselves confronting limits to growth, caused by clearcut logging and related development. The commercial fishing and seafood processing industry accounts for approximately 20 percent of Southeast Alaska's private industry employment. Commercial fishing provides large incomes, over a short summer season, to a broad spectrum of Southeast Alaskans. This income provides the critical source of capital to most rural communities, where year-round employment is scarce.