When the National Park Service's leadership team sat down in August 2014 to draw up a road map for entrance fees across the system, it built upon a study conducted more than a decade earlier.
The 21st century had just dawned when the National Park Foundation contracted with McKinsey and Co., one of the country's largest and best known management consulting firms, to review the entrance fee program as it existed at the time and make recommendations for future fee levels.
"The team’s recommendations were the result of superintendent surveys of all parks; interviews with regional, park, and Washington Office staff; site visits to over 30 park areas; and a thorough analysis of fee, budget, visitation, and other data," the Park Service said in July 2001.
Five years later, a four-tier system was readied to be implemented. Under that system, the highest fee to be charged was $25 for a week in one of the country's largest parks, such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon.
When the Park Service's National Leadership Council, made up of Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, his deputies, and the park system's regional directors, gathered last August to review fees, they used that McKinsey report as their foundation, according to the agency's Washington, D.C., communications office.
The NLC did not call for a survey to see how higher entrance fees might affect visitation before establishing the new schedule. However, said Park Service spokeswoman Kathy Kupper, "previous studies conducted have shown that entrance fees are not typically a deterrent to visitors. Other stronger reasons for not visiting have been cited."
At the end of the August meeting, Director Jarvis sent a memo to his field staff outlining an entrance fee schedule that placed the 131 units that now charge entrance fees into four groups. Under those guidelines, for example, Yellowstone, which at the time cost $25 for a week's entry by vehicle, would be allowed to charge $30 after going through public engagement activities, which could entail "soliciting opinions through local media or online media such as Facebook, Twitter, etc."
By 2017, all Group 4 parks (such as Yellowstone and Yosemite) would charge $30 per week for vehicle entry, $15 for someone on foot, and $25 for a motorcycle; all Group 3 parks would set their entrance fees at $25, $12 and $20; all Group 2 parks would move to $20, $10, and $15, and; all Group 1 parks would move to $15, $7 and $10.
At Yellowstone, Superintendent Dan Wenk decided to split the long-running practice of allowing visitors to enter both Yellowstone and Grand Teton under one $25 fee that allowed entry for seven days. As of this past June 1, a seven-day pass to Yellowstone costs $30, as does a seven-day pass to enter Grand Teton.
Whether the growing number of parks raising entrance fees might influence park visitors to eschew the weekly passes for the $80 annual America the Beautiful pass that allows entry to an unlimited number of parks over a year's time, and how such a move might affect fee revenues, is something the Park Service might look at after all the fees have been raised.
"There has been no analysis on what may happen. We plan to analyze the trends after the increased rates have been implemented," said Ms. Kupper in an email.
At the same time, the Park Service has been directed to study whether that $80 price tag should be increased.
"The Office of the Inspector General has recommended that we, 'begin the process of reevaluating the current fee model to determine necessary updates and establish intervals for periodic reviews to ensure the fee model remains up to date,'" Ms. Kupper wrote, "and, 'assess the current $80 price for the interagency Annual Pass and update the price accordingly.'
"We plan to follow the OIG's recommendations when the majority of parks are in line with the current fee model, and when the current pass study is complete and there is renewed or revised legislation that will provide enough time to do a new pass price study in conjunction with the other agencies participating in the interagency pass program."
How other aspects of the fee program are handled is unknown. For instance, while it currently costs just $10 for park visitors 62 or older to purchase a lifetime pass to the parks, the Park Service has no control over that pricing, according to the spokeswoman. "Currently, the price of the Senior Pass is set by Congress in the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) of 2004 which authorizes the Interagency Pass program," she said.
Additionally, Congress is being lobbied to grant all military veterans a lifetime pass to the parks. And the Obama administration has decided this fall to give all fourth-grade students an annual pass to the parks with hopes of nurturing tomorrow's park advocates.
As for the spate of camping fees that are being increased by some parks, Ms. Kupper said those fees "are based on comparability. Parks try to find like facilities to compare to, but when that is not possible they make note of pricing adjustments when comparing to facilities with more amenities. We do not have a set formula for making adjustments."
When all the parks that have been approved to raise fees implement them, the Park Service should see an additional $45 million for use in addressing visitor needs, she said.
Comments
I find it interesting that Ms Kupper says:
"There has been no analysis on what may happen. We plan to analyze the trends after the increased rates have been implemented,"
But later is quoted saying
when all the parks that have been approved to raise fees implement them, the Park Service should see an additional $45 million for use in addressing visitor needs, she said.
If you haven't studied or accounted for the impact of the higher fees on consumer behavior, how can you conclude there will be a $45 mil increase. This is the same kind of static scoring forced upon the CBO that leads to so many massive errors in forecasts - and legislation. Again, I am not defacto against higher fees, but it seems like a little more thought should go into the process.
She also says: "Other stronger reasons for not visiting have been cited."
It would be interested to know what those are.
Interesting article Kurt, thank you. I am generally opposed to these fee increases. these are public lands and should be supported accordingly. The issue of comparability in setting campground fees is puzzling to me, where would you find this, private sector campgrounds that charge what the market will bear? Is this the direction we want to go in our parks? In Parks like Yosemite where 80% of visitation is daily, average visit time 3-4 hours, $25 dollars is a little steep in my view. To double charge daily entry to Teton and Yellowstone is even more outrageous. Charges for hiking park trails are even more troubling to me. I must agree with EC on this one, the NPS fee policies are poorly thought out, and in my view, hardest on those in the lower income brackets (except us seniors of course). Fees are regressive taxes, insignificant to some, hard on others.
An interesting discussion. As to whether the NPS should have done another "study" before deciding to raise fees, I don't know what that would cost, but I'd bet a credible survey by a reliable firm to cover users of parks nationwide would run into 6, or more likely, 7 figures.
I often tend to agree with critics of spending tax dollars on "consultants" and "studies," and I could see just the stories on this one: "Park service claims it lacks money for needed repairs in parks, but it spends a million dollars on a study to see if visitors are willing to pay more to visit parks."
As to estimating added revenue from the higher fees, one very basic approach would be to take existing data from last year (or average of last three years) for each park's sales of daily fees, annual fees, etc. and apply the new fee to those sales. Simplistic, yes, but it would probably give about as good an estimate as a high-priced study :-)
Lots of factors affect visitation, othere than fees: weather (including opening and closing dates of facilities due to late snowstorms, hurricanes, floods, etc.);the overall economy; gas prices; major fires in or near a park, and . . . . With so many variables, it will be difficult to really determine what effects a change in fees have on visitation.
After reading the above paragraph, maybe a credible "study" on the effect of fee changes would cost into 8 figures :-)
It would be nice if the parks were properly funded by congress on an ongoing basis. It would cost annually less than one of the mothballed and unused jets sitting in a desert graveyard. No more fighting over incremental fee increases, and the paranoid NPS haters would find some other reason to attack "Jarvis and and his jack booted thugs."
I definitely don't like fees for anything. But given the current failure by Congress to get off their fannies and actually do something, what alternatives are there?
Critics decry fees and increases, but don't offer any viable alternative ideas.
And shouting things like "cut unnecessary staff" or "eliminate waste" are not viable unless they are accompanied by a good outline of exactly what constitutes unnecessary staff or what waste really is.
When my daughter and her family pay $450 (actually a steeply discounted rate) for one day in Disney World, it blows my mind to think that people willing to pay that kind of price for an artificial world of entertainment are unwilling to pay less than $100 for an entire family spend a week or more in a real world park.
JT I am sympathetic to your concerns regarding expenditures for studies. The study should have been done right the first time. In addition, putting additional thought into a decision doesn't necessarily cost big bucks. As Ron pointed out, how much studying do you have to do figure out that it isn't right that someone that is in the park for a few hours is paying the same as someone staying for a week.
ec - Not a problem, but I'm not sure what you meant when you said "The study should have been done right the first time." There wasn't much information included in the story about that study, so it's not clear to me what was lacking in that one.
I agree that a lower-priced daily pass should be available, along with the weekly version. I suspect some would say that what's being offered is a daily pass, but to make it a better bargain, it's actually good for 7 days. As some like to point out, a day's ticket to Disneyland costs a whole lot more than even a 7-day pass to Yellowstone at the new rate :-)
There are some efficiencies to be had with a 7-day pass for visitors who stay more than one day, including reducing the time required to get through an entrance station. It takes less time to just show a paid-up, 7-day, pass at the gate, when visitors return on days 2 through 7, than it does to ring up, make change, etc. for a separate transaction. If there are 10 cars lined up at the entrance station, even saving 20 seconds per entry quickly adds up.
I would say not including an analysis of what higher fees would do to behavior was a major shortfall of the first study. In fact, one must wonder what it was they did study if that was excluded.
Yet Disneyland generates 5x the daily visits of either Yellowstone or Yosemite. Obviously people believe they are getting more for their money at Disneyland.
No doubt multiple days should be given a discount but it is disingenuous to justify the price because its good for 7 days when the vast majority of people are using it for substantially less.