Your national park experience could get more expensive under rule changes for concessionaires being proposed by the National Park Service/NPS file, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Dave Bruner

In a move described as a means to improving the national park experience for visitors, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is proposing to ease regulations for park concessionaires with hopes they'd add services in the parks and invest in facilities. Along the way, the changes also could make that experience more expensive.

The initiative was condemned Thursday as a giveaway to private businesses that want to profit from the National Park System.

"The Trump administration is plowing forward with a plan to give away America's national park assets to monied private concessionaires without a Senate-confirmed national parks director in the middle of a pandemic," said Jayson O’Neill, director of the Western Values Project that routinely criticizes the Trump administration's public lands management. "Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes. This proposal is as wrong as it is backward.”

Last fall Interior's Subcommittee on Recreation Enhancement Through Reorganization drafted a proposal that called for some significant changes to visitor services in the park system. It recommended upgrades to park campgrounds, additional services such as Wi-Fi and possibly food trucks, and suggested that concessionaires be encouraged to tackle some of the improvements by ensuring they would be repaid by subsequent concessionaires if they ever lost, or surrendered, the campground management contract.

The proposal also suggested that holders of the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Senior Pass, an $80 lifetime pass those 62 and older can buy and which provides a 50 percent discount on campground fees, face some blackout dates during busy seasons that would prevent them from that discount. 

David Vela, the acting director of the National Park Service, saw the proposed changes as a benefit to the parks and their visitors.

“Concessioners have been creating lasting national park memories for more than 125 years. The proposed changes are an important step toward strengthening our public-private partnerships and expanding sustainable, high quality and contemporary visitor services in our national parks,” he said in a release.

But the changes also could increase the cost of a national park visit. For instance, a Park Service director could decide that concessionares are in the best position to decide what the market will bear for, say, a night at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park or a stay in Housekeeping Camp at Yosemite National Park. Currently, Park Service staff help judge the fairness of rates charged visitors, although there is a pilot program at Yellowstone that allows Xanterra Parks and Resorts (aka Xanterra Travel Collection) to offer some lodging rooms at whatever the market will bear.

"Other rate approval methods would be used only when the director determines that market forces are inadequate to establish the reasonableness of rates and charges for the facilities, goods, or services. For example, this may occur for overnight stays at iconic lodges, food and beverage outlets where there are no easily accessible alternatives, guiding services for one-of-a-kind recreational experiences, and transportation to NPS units where there is only one way to access the site (e.g. ferry service to the Statue of Liberty)," reads the proposed rule.

The rule recognizes that "(T)he enhanced use of competitive market methods may result in increased rates and revenue with no change in expenses to the concessioner. These changes in the financial opportunity of the contract will be accounted for through contract requirements that would benefit the public using the concession services."

The proposed changes to the regulatory landscape concessionaires must negotiate came from the concessionaires, according to the proposed rule, which will be open to public comment once it's published in the Federal Register.

Examples of new services concessionaires and businesses would like to be able to bring to the parks include better Wi-Fi, bike rentals at Grand Canyon National Park, and parking management at Muir Woods National Monument.

Under the proposed rule, the Park Service director would be able to "issue a prospectus for a new concession opportunity when the director determines that a new concession opportunity is necessary and appropriate for public use and enjoyment of the unit and is consistent to the highest practicable degree with the preservation and conservation of the resources and values of the unit."

The rule changes also would allow the director to amend existing concession contracts to add new services as merited.

“We are looking at each proposed change carefully to ensure that park visitors continue to have unforgettable and affordable experiences and the change is in line with the mission of the National Park Service,” said Emily Douce, director of operations and park funding for the National Parks Conservation Association.