Plowing to open Yellowstone National Park's roads for the travel season is just beginning, and area businesses are wondering whether travelers will come to the park/NPS, Jake W. Frank

While the coronavirus pandemic is putting a stranglehold on some businesses that cling to the National Park System, others seem to be faring better, at least early on during the economic downward slide.

With Xanterra Parks & Resorts idling its lodging and food service operations within Yellowstone National Park at least until May 21, businesses in the gateway community of West Yellowstone, Montana, may be facing some tough times as tourist traffic slumps.

Despite that, campground owner Steve Linde currently is seeing more reservations than cancellations. Owner and general manager of two family-owned campgrounds since 1982, Yellowstone West Gate KOA and Yellowstone Mountain Side KOA, plus a 44-room Super 8 Hotel in town, Linde attributes the delay in cancellations to several factors.  One, he said, is optimism that the spread of Covid 19 will slow in the coming months. The other is KOA’s generous cancellation policy, which allows travelers to cancel just two days prior to their arrival date. 

Convenience stores, small eateries, and laundry facilities within his campgrounds and hotel provide additional business revenue.

Linde’s campgrounds – located a mile-and-a-half from each other in the small, pine forest-wrapped town -- offer some 500 campsites total, including 60 tent sites and some 85 cabins at the national park’s West Entrance. He employs 80 people, who are nearly all seasonal workers from across the country and overseas. 

Many are “work campers” who travel in RVs and split their season between parks in the northern and southern parts of the country, moving with the seasons.

The delays of the season and looming uncertainty about subsequent months have resulted in some cancellations, which Linde finds understandable. One guest from Denmark canceled because he doesn’t know whether policies at that time will allow travel to the United States.  And some folks who are simply playing it safe, he said.

Linde said one traveler cancelled purely for economic reasons. 

“He told me, ‘My 401K got wiped out and that’s how I paid for my trips,’” Linde explained during a phone conversation. “So he’s thinking he’s going to tighten his belt and not travel at all. I can definitely sense panic in some people.”

Although there have been travelers who have expressed a reasonable amount of apprehension to Linde, he does find it strange that some guests are cancelling reservations for August and September.

“When I try to talk to them [about the reason they are cancelling], I get various responses.  A lot of them say, ‘We’re just not taking any chances.’ But September is so far out there, why would they be cancelling that early?” he wondered aloud.

The number of reservations at his facilities continues to exceed cancellations, however.  Linde said that when he explains the KOA cancellation policy to guests, a few ultimately decide to hold onto their reservations and “wait and see.”  And in the past couple of weeks he has taken a few unexpected long-term reservations -- 10 days to two weeks in duration. 

“Are some people thinking they’re going to hit Yellowstone if things go bad, that Yellowstone is a safe place?”

He ponders RV life: “You’ve got self-contained RVs with their own bathrooms, showers and kitchens. You’re quarantined, not really exposing yourself a whole lot. Maybe it’s a good way to travel and still protect yourself.”

In the meantime, Linde is expressing an optimistic point of view; while he lost 90 percent of his business during the 2018-19 partial government shutdown, he still landed on his feet. 

“I don’t want to push the panic button myself,” he said, acknowledging that the next two weeks will reveal much about whether social distancing is slowing the spread of the virus.

“In my wildest dreams, I’d love to have them say, ‘We’ve got it cured, we’ve got it taken care of, everybody take a deep breath. We’re all good,” the businessman said. “Seriously, we could end up having one of our biggest years ever. That’s what I’m most optimistic about. You’ve got to be optimistic about something, right?”

Eric Stump worries that visitors who rent vehicles from him to drive on Cape Hatteras National Seashore's beaches will stay away this summer/NPS file

Will Tourists Flock To National Seashores This Year?

On the other side of the continent, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks fronting the Atlantic Ocean, Eric Stump expresses an optimistic, yet somewhat resigned, tone in the face of many unknowns.

“We’re missing the beginning of the season,” he said the other day. “We’re just hoping we don’t miss the whole show.”

Stump and his wife own Island Cruisers, a vehicle rental business in Salvo, N.C., that serves an area spanning from Carova Beach just south of the North Carolina-Virginia border, to Ocracoke Island in Hyde County. The business that supports him, his wife, and their son and four-six summer employees depends primarily on seasonal visitors to the 70-mile-long Cape Hatteras National Seashore, where visitor centers and campgrounds were temporarily closed on March 17. 

All non-residents currently are restricted from entering Dare County to access other locales in and around the national seashore, such as Corolla and Ocracoke Island. Dare County extends all the way from the southern tip of Hatteras Island to Duck.   

Island Cruisers owns a fleet of some 60 vehicles, including Jeep 4x4s, vintage VW buggies, golf carts, sedans, and SUVs that are popular with visitors who want to experience beach driving.  The business derives supplemental, but minimal, off-season income with vehicle undercarriage rustproofing services for area residents and local water rescue and fire departments.

According to Stump, Island Cruisers is “one of the largest small operations of this type in the area,” a tight-knit community fueled by the same influx of seasonal tourism.  

Having owned Island Cruisers for 15 years, Stump’s business has survived its share of severe storms and hurricanes, including the worst – for him -- Hurricane Irene in 2011.  That’s when the business sustained massive losses and significant property damage.  Despite having moved his vehicles to higher ground and his shop being elevated five feet above grade, there was still two feet of water inside his building.  It was a gut punch, but Island Cruisers recovered.

“Every region has its poison,” he says. “The Midwest has tornadoes. There are wildfires out west. I think when we get hit by a storm here, we always know that after we put things back together and can get folks down here, the show goes on.”

He expresses unease for Ocracoke Island, the majority of which is within the national seashore.  Tourism has virtually been on hold since September 2019 after Hurricane Dorian devastated Ocracoke homes and businesses.

“Residents and business owners spent the entire last year getting their lives back together in hopes of a good start to the tourism season this year,” Stump said. “So those folks are suffering, too. Everyone’s feeling it.”

In the midst of uncertainty, Stump, who is accustomed to working 15-hour days, seven days a week during the peak season summer months, is focusing his energy on non-income producing activities. “We’ve shifted completely from rentals to trying to do all the things around the shop that we never have time to do.  We might as well make gains that are not necessarily monetary gains,” he said. “We’re trying to make best of the situation.”

One of Stump’s major concerns is the timetable when business can return to their normal operations. With so many vehicles in his rental fleet, his expenses are hefty. Costs include upkeep and maintenance of vehicles, licensing, registration and insurance.

“With the size of our business, the overhead is pretty large to keep all this stuff,” he explains.  “If we don’t get the tourism and have to go a year of those bills and not have any income, it will be tough.”  

Stump says they would be forced to sell equipment and vehicles.

Already secured paid-in-advance rentals present more worries. Stump explains that when many customers return their vehicles, they simply re-reserve them for their visit to the Outer Banks the following year.

And, he says, there are renters, in anticipation of summer rental shortages, who reserve in the off-season, paying in full and receiving a small discount.

“Right now we’re only looking at cancellations on rentals up to Easter. Those are the only ones cancelling at this point,” Stump said. “But as they push the timeline out, we certainly will end up in a situation where we have to start giving back money that we don’t have for reservations that have been made and paid for…and we’ve spent that money for living expenses to prepare for the explosion of visitors during the season. It can certainly get worse from this point for sure.”

One recent cancellation, for example, was a $1,400 two-week Jeep rental. Island Cruisers refunded the money to the customer.

Stump says he’s curious to see how quickly tourism can turn around once people start returning to the Outer Banks.

“The crowd of folks that go on vacation may change. They may not be same folks year to year, but there’s usually always a group that can afford to go on vacation,” he said.  “And that’s the thing that kind of makes this situation a little unique because this is affecting everyone across the board.”

So for now, Stump will continue working on those neglected tasks that he usually pushes aside due to his lack of time during the busy season.

“The ‘sky is falling’ scenario doesn’t really turn out too well, and you can worry yourself to death with it. But really, you make the best of it. Do that or let it swallow you up.”