WILD BILL
The Real Reason National Park Visitation Has Declined
By Bill Schneider, 11-30-06
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If you read murder mysteries or watch cop movies, you’ve heard it several times. After looking at seemingly unrelated clues, the protagonist rubs his or her chin and says, “I don’t believe in coincidences.” That’s sort of how I feel when looking for clues to solve the mystery of why visitation to our national parks has declined.
The NPS has finally--and somewhat reluctantly, in seems--confirmed that the number of people going to national parks has been on a steady decline since 1996. Well, something else happened in 1996 that may have started the downward slide--unless you believe in coincidences, that is.
The much-ballyhooed decline has been the subject of many media reports, including the latest, an excellent article by Julie Cart in the Los Angeles Times. Cart quotes the National Parks Service (NPS) theorizing about the reasons for the declining visitation. Prime suspects include the population getting older and richer and softer and liking king beds and room service over sleeping in a tent with the rodents and spiders after an outdoor outing; a continued lack of interest in the outdoors among minorities even as they grow in terms of percentage of the overall population; and more and more kids preferring video games over outdoor activities and not connecting with wild nature.
I’ll throw in one of my own, the perception of over-regulation. I know people, particularly backcountry enthusiasts, who shy away from the national parks in favor of nearby wildlands for hiking and other outdoor activities to avoid fees and regulation. The NPS would argue this point, I suspect, but perception is reality.
Hard to argue with any of these trends, but are they responsible for the decline. I suspect they all contribute, but let’s talk about the “elephant in the room,” as they say, the obvious issue everybody sees but nobody wants to discuss.
Back in 1996, the economics of managing national parks radically changed. We have had entrance fees and other fees in national parks for a long time, of course, but until 1996, the NPS collected these fees under the provisos of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965. This Act capped fees at $5 and returned all fees collected to the U.S. Treasury. In a few cases, that fee revenue may have indirectly found its way back to the park where it was collected, but more often, it went to buy gas for Air Force One, farm subsidies, earmarked pork, and a million other line items in the federal budget.
In 1996, Congress earmarked (i.e. no public input, no up-or-down vote, etc.) the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program to a spending bill. The demo program allowed the NPS and individual national parks to raise fees above $5 and keep 90 percent of the fee revenue in the parks where it was collected. In 2002, Congress expanded the fee demo program by earmarking the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) to another spending bill. Translation? All this happened without getting input or approval from all of us, the people expected to pay the fees.
Did this tectonic shift in NPS financial management serve as the tipping point that started the decline in visitation? Well, do you believe in coincidences? None of the other above-mentioned trends started in 1996.
We do know what happened after the “temporary” demo fee program passed in 1996. The NPS started charging and increasing entrance fees, annual passes, parking fees, and all sorts of other fees and has kept doing it for the past ten years, the same ten years that have seen a steady decline in park visitation. One last time, I promise, do you believe in coincidences?
And we aren’t talking peanuts. While the overall population has increased, overnight stays in national parks dropped by 20 percent. Tent and backcountry camping went down almost 24 percent.
Now, the big question. Is this good or bad?
There is a political problem, of course. There always is. If people don’t go to the national parks, they won’t care about them, which makes getting adequate funding and support more challenging down the road.
But I have a hard time getting too worked up about a decline in visitation because of the insane overcrowding the big parks like Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. On the other hand, remote, unheralded parks like Guadalupe Mountains or Theodore Roosevelt would be considered underused.
I’d be pacified if I thought the NPS used fees to quietly plan the decline to save the parks from overuse, but I seriously doubt it. You hear a lot of double speak from the NPS on this point--in one breath, people are loving the parks to death, but in the next breath, quick to brag about any increase in visitation (or mope in silence about a decline). Perhaps there’s a NPS insider out there who could use the comments section to anonymously tell us the agency is using high fees to save the parks from being loved to death.
Inerestingly, the NPS doesn’t even use the fees for park operations or to defray the so-called backlog in “deffered maintenance.” According to a recent GAO audit of the FLREA the NPS has an “unobligated balance” (fee revenue not spent) of $243.6 million, roughly double the agency’s annual intake from fees. The NPS says it’s saving these funds for large projects, but at the same time the agency chiefs continually cry broke, reduce staff and services, and keep raising fees.
If history tells us anything, funding operations with user fees eventually fails because they can’t keep up with rising costs and rarely capture all users of a resource.
So what’s the end game? Interestingly--and inadvertently, it seems--the NPS might be doing exactly the right thing. I prefer the agency be honest about it and say fees contribute heavily to declining visitation, but they could follow that admission with, “but we’re doing it on purpose because it’s in line with our mission to preserve wild nature.”
Do we want the NPS to lower fees and promote visitation to national parks to appease the travel industry, gateway communities, and concessionaires? Or turn national parks into theme parks? No, I think we prefer the current mission, preservation of natural systems. But are high fees a good way to protect parks from people?
Since all current trends affecting declining visitation, including escalating fees, will likely continue unabated, where will we be when the National Parks Service celebrates its 100th birthday ten years from now in 2016? Will we have saved the parks from runaway population growth by making them so expensive only the rich can enjoy them?
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Comments
A park ranger once told me that the federal government is ripping off the people of this country by charging entrance fees, parking fees, etc., etc, by asking me "What are you paying taxes for? Your taxes should be paying for all this!"
I went to The Black Canyon on the Gunnison earlier this year and it was like $20.00 entrance fee and the only amenity was the visitors center.
I also worked for three seasons with a concessioner in a major park in the 80's and saw how the environmental wacos have taken control and direction of park policy. I believe these people do not serve the interest of American general population and are quite happy to see visitation drop.
You probably were not counted, but you may have missed the direction to the "iron ranger," which is a big metal tube were you can put you money and be counted. All parks don't use Iron Rangers, but many of them do.
Bill
For instance, BLM visitation has gone from 58.9 million in 1996 to 62.1 million in 1999 before plummeting to 51.5 million in 2001. Since then it's crept upwards a bit, to 54 million in 2004. Over on U.S. Forest Service lands, visitation was roughly 209 million in 2000, 214 million in 2001, and 204.8 million in 2004.
I think it's also important to note that the 2005 hurricane season produced a 2.5 million drop in visitation to Gulf Islands National Seashore, a head count that comprises 74.5 percent of the national park system's overall visitation decline from 2004 to 2005.
On my blog, http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com, I've explored this visitation debate several times and been unable to come to any concrete conclusion.
All that said, I would agree with your premise that the ever-escalating fees national parks are coming up with are not in the best interest of visitation....but they could prove to be a boon for the resources.
Kurt
So too, if you are like Bill and have a hard-on for recreation fees, any story that comes along that might support your argument against fees is fair game.
Looks like Mr. Repanshek provided some information that, at least on BLM lands, recreation use went UP after Rec Fee Demo was enacted. Maybe NPS visition is not price sensitive after all.
I do agree with Bill's thesis that charging for something that has been free will chase away people who don't want to pay. But I have heard that licensed outfitters and guides have not seen a dip in their business on the rivers where a fee is now collected. Perhaps we are talking about the casual user who will trade away a day in the wilds if it costs something and instead stay home and surf the internet.
Thanks for adding these interesting statistics. They seem to support the same theory i.e. that fees have caused a decline in numbers on BLM and FS lands, too, but not as severe, possibly because many BLM and FS managed lands still do not have entrance fees.
Bill
The idea of turning the former military base into a park originally did not include the extent of development that is currently being undertaken by the Presidio Trust that now runs the park. Private businesses are buying the buildings on the Presidio and refurbishing them for private use. The "park" is becoming basically an office campus. The public may walk around on the grounds but not enter the historic buildings.
This seems to me to be the epitome of the Bush administration's vision for public America. You can get as much of it as you are able to pay for.
I would be happy to support our public lands exclusively through taxes and eliminate outrageously high user fees. The fees have increased to the point that outdoor recreation is unaffordable for many people. I'm not talking about the people who can afford a guide either. Perhaps some of these folks are just too busy working, and unable to afford a week off at a National Park.
The notion that parks should pay for themselves will undermine the idea that these parks are national treasures, being protected for future generations and that their value adds up to much more than any bean counters bottom line. But the Bush administration and others that view the Parks as nothing more than another business venture would be ecstatic to see much of these lands privatized and developed for short term profit.
I also wonder if National Parks seem too tame to the contemporary adventurer. Many of us seem to demand a different experience than that which is offered in a controlled environment like a National Park.
The values of our nation are reflected in the way that we allocate and spend tax money. When it comes to parks and public lands, I'd say it's not a very pretty picture.
It's a really hard thing I'd think to provide all of that without any compromise anywhere. And when people come away from a National Park experience feeling that they were shortchanged that doesn't help. Then again, delineating just WHAT that experience was expected to give them, and did or did not, may be beyond most people's abilities to express.
And that certainly can't help the National Park Service sort out what it wants to be when it grows up.
Don't understand why we pay an entrance fee when we pay our taxes on the parks. Somethings not right.
In the 19th century, Congress mandated that Interior and USFS return 50% of gross revenues from Public Domain, and 25% of gross revenues from USFS, paid to the county of origin. I have often wondered how that worked in Parks. I know guides pay 3% of their gross to pack you into a remote area of public land.
If the public lands don't return money to the county they are in, how is that county supposed to provide public services, especially in the West where many counties are more than half public lands, and some as much as 80% or more? You know, things like access roads to Park boundaries, ambulance, search and rescue for the increasingly stupid population, schools for the Park personnel kids, etc.
The folks who say the Parks no longer serve the masses are probably correct. A family of four on vacation to a Park needs $600 a day to lodge, eat and travel. When most families now have both parents working, and $30,000 per year college in the future for a couple of kids, the kind of vacations their parents took to see the wonders of the NPS are likely not as available as they once were. And, the Parks are no longer friendly to low budget campers, just in terms of daily fees, entrance fees, and limits in terms of what and where they can go and what they can do.
And as for the USFS lands, you know, because that has been the emphasis, that the USFS road system has been systematically deconstructed. You can no longer get there from here. Between fires and other storm events, the cleanup from which will not happen, infrastructure is lost on those lands daily, and that will translate into less public use. Budget reductions most certainly reflect the almost total disappearance of income from timbering, and the billion and half dollar annual fire fighting cost, leaving recreation with nothing. Bad management begetting more bad management. The gift that keeps on giving.
On the other hand, all that new reflective surface sans trees and brush is directing solar heating into the stratosphere, and cooling the earth. Perhaps we can direct recreation to the new burns, the major attraction their being cooler than the timbered brush fields we now call forest. People can watch the miraculous burn recovery happen before their very eyes. And, they can get a close up view of the gentle mosaic of burn patterns that are so necessary to having species diversity. With all that good happening to public lands, those burns also have the attraction that they are probably not going to burn again right away, making them fire safe for the time being.
The Feds just need to learn how to make lemonade and use all that this new enlightened landscape management theory brings to the table.
Regulations impacting organized groups has also had an impact. Outfitters and guides operating season businesses are being hit with fees of 12% to 20% of gross, which along with the insurance requirements designed for the billion dollar concessioners who run hotels. These costs are in addition to increased fuel, labor and other operating costs. In most Parks NPS regulates the price so they cannot simply be passed on without NPS conducting a study. Recentling NPS proposed requiring outfitters to obtain $3,000,000 in pollution coverage which is simply not available. This will obviously have a negative impact on those visitors who need the services of an outfitter.
People like to know they can visit when they get somewhere, Yellowstone and the Tetons are under a constant barrage of law suits to prevent snow machines and so on. That alone has accounted for a big drop in the visitation to those two parks. Who wants to drive across the country only to find that only skiers can get in.
I think the entrance fee is only a small part of the problem, and I doubt that it is the defining factor in whether to visit or not. On the other hand I think the taxpayers are owed an explanation as to why the fees are piling up while we hear the weeping and wailing about "this administration" not getting all of the repairs done. Repairs that go back several administrations.
Are Fees and NPS Policies Causing the Decline in
Visits to National Parks?
Washington has finally caught on to the fact that despite substantial increases in funding, population growth and an increase in the number of Park units, visits to National Parks in the U.S. are continuing to decline. The absence of a marketing strategy, changing traveler preferences, rising Park fees and NPS management policies are reasons for the decline.
NPS got a wake-up call in September 2006 when Representative Pearce, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on national parks held a hearing on the declining visitation.
Here are the facts. Since 1987
• the National Park system has grown from 310 to 390 units (up 25%),
• the U.S. population has climbed from 243 million to 300 million (up 23%),
• spending on parks has grown substantially (a 300% increase in the agency’s operating budget),
• the number of visitations to the National Park system has actually decreased from 287 million in 1987 to a projected 270 million visits in 2006 – a decline of 6%. and agency projections call for a further 1% decline in 2007
• 63 million of these 270 million visits – 23% – can be attributed to the 58 units designated as National Parks. Our national recreation areas, national seashores and other types of units drew more than 75% of all visits to the National Park system.
• According to the NPS website on public statistics, backcountry camping use is down 33% since its peak in the 1980’s.
Overall, use would show further declines, but NPS counts visits to the George Washington Parkway, a major route for commuters who work in downtown DC and other highways such as US 441 through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park as park visits. National monuments, historical sites and recreation areas are included in overall statistics.
Despite their significant investment in facilities and infrastructure for visitors, none of the federal land managing agencies has comprehensive marketing strategies. The Forest Service is developing a recreation facilities inventory and working proactively to adjust their recreation program. Parks will become irrelevant to many Americans unless the agency packages and markets what they offer in an attractive way. The hearing in September stressed the need for a marketing strategy. The new NPS Management Policies encourages cooperation with tourism officials.
Demographic changes and travel trends have made some activities in Parks less popular and NPS has not adapted to those trends. Fees are impacting demand. Some Parks require a visitor to buy a week-long pass even if they visit for a portion of one day. A day hike will cost you $25 in Grand Teton National Park.
NPS is also dramatically increasing concessions fees. Some concessioners are forced to offer 20% of their gross revenues to provide day trips in national parks, making their services more expensive and less attractive to consumers. Fees that concessioners pay to provide services to the general public are sky-rocketing and threatening the viability of some concessions operations. On more than one occasion, the General Accounting Office (GAO) found NPS accepting inferior proposals for contracts in favor of higher fees. The goal of the concessions program should be to provide quality service to the public at reasonable prices and not to maximize fees at the expense of visitor experiences.
Fees cannot be blamed for the entire decline. International visits to the U.S. have declined since 9/11 with the U.S. falling from 1st to 6th as a destination for international travel. Visits to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park are down 10% since their peak in 1999. But there are no entrance fees in the Smokies and international visits are not a significant portion of overall use.
Another sign that demographics and fees are not the entire cause of the decline in Park visits can be found in the record number of visits to ski areas. The National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) recently reported 58.9 million national skier/snowboarder visits for the 2005/06 season, a record number. This is up 3.5% from last season, and up 2.3% from the previous record set in 2002/03, according to NSAA.
NPS policies and management agendas may be having an impact. For example, NPS has increased the amount of backcountry subject to wilderness management, which often limits visitation and restricts group size to as few as 8 visitors in one party. An estimated 86% of the backcountry in National Parks is subject to wilderness management as defined by NPS Management Policies. NPS applies “minimum requirements” for administration and management of wilderness backcountry even before the areas are officially designated wilderness by Congress. Areas under the categories: study, proposed, recommended, as well as designated wilderness are subject to the minimum requirements policy. The use of hand tools and non mechanical devices for maintenance of trails and other facilities may be required in these areas. Superintendents have some flexibility to deviate from the policy, but are encouraged to follow it, making maintenance much more labor intensive.
The good news is that NPS has begun pilot projects to encourage Americans to maintain active lifestyles for health and fitness by visiting National Parks. NPS may be forced to develop a marketing strategy and will likely need to review its overhead costs to enable it to reverse the downward trend.
NPS has a great site on public use statistics and keeps better use data then any other federal land managing agency. Check it out at http://www2.nature.nps.gov/stats/
Now we hear visitation is down over all, neither of the two towns has added motels or restaurants. Gardiner has been negatively impacted because of the loss of significant hunting opportunities.
One very good reason for keeping fees rather than raising taxes is the fact probably at least half of visitors to the major NPs are from foreign countries. It is bad enough to expect the folks who cannot afford to drive across the country to visit one of the big parks to subsidize other Americans who can, but it is a bit much to ask them to subsidize rich tourists from other countries who can afford to fly over here.
Perhaps we need to turn some of the lesser parks back to state management and retain only those that truly are national landmarks.
And if fees cause fewer people to visit my National Forest, then bring it on! The land is already too crowded and overused as it is. And the agencies charged with trying to limit the damage from all the people get nothing but grief from Bill and the other arguing for more freeloaders.
I would also echo what some others have mentioned. The units of the National Park System are very diverse in many ways, including fees, visitation trends, and backcountry use policies. Very few general statements will ring true across the board. There is however, a real danger of higher fees turning people away.
Grand Canyon, Saguaro, and Joshua Tree have had flat visitation rates, whereas Carlsbad, Guadalupe Mtns., and Death Valley have seen significant declines in visits, 50% in Carlsbad alone.
I think this is multifactorial. It costs a lot of money to take off work and to travel, far more than the fees alone.
I have mixed feelings on the issue. On the one hand, I don't want our parks to be loved to death. On the other, if people don't see them, we won't preserve them in the face of population and pollution pressures.
The new generation does not seem to be that active with our parks. Back country excursions seem to be less attractive than say material items as a game box. I grew up on the back side of Yosemite and now, I wouldn't even attempt to go now. A few years back my wife and I made a trip from Alaska to the Grand Canyon, south rim. We were very surprised by the over crowding and the chaos that seem to exist. We enjoyed the north rim a whole lot more.
Gas prices have impacted the RV'ers, but so has the rise in admission prices.
If you really want a true live back country wilderness experience, consider the National Parks in Alaska. Alaska has the largest national parks in the country, yet they are basically not used or visited.
I believe the National Parks in the “lower 48” have been regulated and loved to death. Most folks will just do a quick pass by and say I have been to the Grand Canyon, but never really stop and take the time needed to explore and experience our National Parks.
When I state “love to death,” I mean that radical environmentalism seem to have more control over the parks than do the true “conversationalist”, the true keepers of the parks. Groups like the Serra Club, PETA etc. Most folks are just plain sick and tired of these small, yet radical groups that seem to yell the loudest, yet when it comes to funding our National Parks, these Environmental Waco Terrorist are (unsurprisingly) absent. They want everyone else to pay for their projects, but they are unwilling to put any money in the pot.
Key Points: New generation is not interested and the rest are sick and tired of the radicals.
soon after plenty of fees went into place (from the national park level to the trailhead forest service level) we all saw inept concessionaires running more and more of our parks and public lands. so now, a good portion of our tax dollars and at-the-gate fees go to private businesses that turn a profit at our expense. a lot has changed in 10 years, and none of it really for the better.
a weekend of camping and entrance fees locally at rocky mountain park runs ya about $60-$75 to tent camp! Ridiculous. i remember being able to take road trips on a $20 golden eagle pass and grab cheap campsites all around the country. not so much any more.
i only wonder this - what can we do to change things?
it's not generational - it's financial.
The difference between a "conversationalist" and an "environmentalist" is like the difference between night and day. A true conversationalist treats the land with reverence, protecting while allowing sound, safe development.
Environmentalists want only to "lock" the land down for a select few individuals. The North Slope in Alaska is a good example. When the pipeline was proposed the environmentalists stated (as they do today with ANWR) that the caribou will die and they would never cross under the pipeline! Environmentalists play on your feelings, and don’t state the true facts or science. By the way, since the completion of the pipeline in 1977, the caribou herds in the area have tripled! So much for caribou decimation.
Now that doesn't mean that there are not issues to solve (not locked up). Exxon Valdez and the recent pipeline leak was the result of our legislatures and regulatory agencies not doing their jobs. That is inexcusable and all concerned needs to pay a price for their arrogance. But does that mean we should stop development? I don’t think so. We do need parks and open areas where we can enjoy the outdoors, but every acre of land does not need to be locked up as the Serra Club would have you believe.
Bob and Martian-Are you willing to give up your cars and track across this country on foot? I don't think you are, I'm not. So we need to develop energy and right now that is oil and gas. Hopefully we can start to find cleaner forms of energy. ANWR should be opened, but strict oversight should be the norm, not the exception. I want to protect the land and use it respectfully, but I also want to develop using sound, scientific methods.
A lot has changed since 1977. Have any of you been to ANWR during the middle of the winter, in -65f temperatures? I have and it would be safe to explore oil and gas during this time of year. In fact, this is the ONLY time that exploration occurs.
Unfortunately, the environmental waco terrorist believe Alaska is their own personal national park and want you to believe their same old lies about how it will destroy the land and wildlife. This is simply not true!
Serra Club and PETA etc. are nothing more than liars and extremist!
and as i understand it, with the fee demonstration program came a push to have more money put directly back into the parks. the reason there are so many problems now is because fees went into the general fund for so long. so if anything good comes out of the higher fees, theoretically...more money should be going back into the parks.
No mistake. Right thread.
We keep increasing our national parks but we are not willing to properly care for them. I just read about a new one in Idaho, Montana that is being proposed. I live under one of the most over loved parks in the world, Denali, and the amount of money that is extorted from tourist should be turned back into the park. Adding more parks is not the solution.
My ANWR argument is neither rehearsed, nor off track. It is just an Alaskan speaking the truth! The "environmental crowd" always screams foul when the truth is spoken. Facts and science don’t lie. Parks are for the public's use, not to be a "prize" that the environmental wacos want to lock up.
What is going on here is not conservation, or management, or environmentally sound litigated actions (which alone have done in more habit and species here than anything else in known history).
The only constant here is the horrible rural cleansing (cultural genocide) of those who really did care for the land. The push for greater and greater restrictions on a situation that wasn't broke in the first place will destroy it all, QUESTIONS SUCH AS FEES, MONEY MANAGEMENT, AND VISITATION (too much or to little) become irrelevant.
What's happening is obviously not about saving species or habitat. Its obviously not about saving any ecological values such as recognizing cultures that sustainably use and increase biodiversity. ULTIMATELY ON THE TOP ADMINISTRATIVE LEVEL ITS NOT ABOUT VISITORS, NUMBERS, FEES AT ALL. HERE ITS ABOUT TITLE CLEARANCE TO THE RESOURCES OF THE MOUNTAIN WEST THAT THE TRANS-NATIONAL CORPS. THAT NOW AGGRESSIVELY FUND THE BIG 3 TRANS-NATIONAL "ENVIRO" BUDDIES. All Funding Grants come from this top down hierarchy. What we're experiencing is happening world-wide in rural areas, misnomered "THE WILD!"