Skift Take
National Parks are being "loved to death" and solutions are urgently needed to manage, disperse, and educate crowds while increasing access for all.
The pandemic’s overtourism effect on the U.S. outdoors came into greater focus last summer, when a record number of crowds flocked to the U.S. national parks and surrounding gateway communities, many of whom as first-time visitors who’d never explored their backyard.
But it’s not the increase in visitation and outdoor economy boom that’s a bad thing per se — rather, the urgency lies in identifying and implementing crowd management strategies for the next five to 10 years in the most visited national parks, and these won't be "one size fits all."
That was the crux of what leaders in government, including National Park Service superintendents and tourism representatives, agreed to on Wednesday at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources’ Subcommittee on National Parks’ hearing to review the impacts of overcrowding on national parks and visitor experiences, and to listen to proposals for long-term solutions.
“It’s great to see so many Americans are taking advantage of these parks,” said Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine. “However at the same time we must recognize that overcrowding in the parks can degrade the natural resources and wildlife that these units are designed to protect. We can accidentally love our parks to death.”
According to Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at National Parks Conservation Association, the parks had 327 million visits in 2019 alone, with record breaking results expected this year. Yellowstone National Park has already shown a 40 percent jump in April, Brengel said, while Zion National Park can have a four-hour wait to access the trail heads.
How can the National Park Service and the business community embrace the economic boom while preventing ruining the visitor experience and straining the resources of gateway communities? Multiple solutions and ideas were put forth, some of which are currently being tested, ranging from timed ticketing systems to shuttle use increase to reduce traffic volume within the park, and the need for more digital tools to educate and identify hotspots.
Other challenges identified
