A $100 fee was well worth it to stand in front of red-footed boobies in Galapagos National Park. Would foreign visitors balk at a surcharge to walk the boardwalk around Grand Prismatic Spring or gaze into the Grand Canyon?/Kurt Repanshek file

When my wife and I visited Galapagos National Park last spring, it was the trip of a lifetime and we didn't think twice about the $100 per person park entrance fee. Indeed, it was a tiny sliver of the trip's overall cost. Ecuadorian residents, meanwhile, are charged a $6 entrance fee, a vast difference that raises the question of whether the National Park Service needs to place a surcharge on international visitors?

At the Property and Environment Research Center, a Bozeman, Montana, nonprofit that advocates for free market solutions to public lands issues, research fellow Tate Watkins argues that the Park Service is being deprived of hundreds of millions of dollars each year by not charging foreign visitors more to enter parks. 

In a report released just before the holidays, Watkins said the Park Service could see an additional $330 million simply by placing a $25 surcharge on the roughly 14 million international visitors who visit U.S. parks.

"Crucially, this additional revenue would be dedicated to maintaining ailing parks and improving stewardship of them," wrote Watkins. "The majority of park fee receipts are retained and spent where collected, as superintendents and on-the-ground staff see fit. The model empowers local managers who best know their parks—and the needs they face—to decide how to spend funds. Ultimately, additional fee revenue would help ensure all visitors can continue to enjoy an incredible experience at U.S. parks."

It's no secret that the Park Service is strapped for funding. The backlog of maintenance in the National Park System has been estimated at $22 billion; there are staffing shortages, in part because of low pay; and the steady addition of new units to the park system brings new costs to the agency.

While fee increases to enter parks or to camp in one routinely draw complaints from the public, the fees are a bargain for the access they provide. Two years ago, in a video produced by PERC, Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly pointed out that a $35 fee for a family of four to spend 3.2 days (the average stay) in the park works out to $2.89 per person per day. At the same time, it cost a family of four $122 to visit the Space Needle in Seattle, while a trip to Disney World in Florida cost $110 per person per day, according to PERC.

While a big jump in domestic entrance fees — say, a doubling or tripling — isn't likely because of strong opposition from some members of Congress, gateway communities, and even attorneys general, PERC believes one on foreign visitors is appropriate and wouldn't cause a backlash.

"Asking international tourists who do not support U.S. national parks through taxes to pay a little more to see them is not only reasonable, it would also provide additional resources to improve the stewardship of our 'crown jewels,'” Watkins stressed in his report. "Moreover, formal evidence suggests that demand to visit U.S. national parks—in particular the highest profile destinations—is not sensitive to admission prices, particularly for overseas visitors."

While Watkins is of the opinion that the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act gives superintendents leeway in setting fees, he said Congress should specifically "encourage parks to adopt a surcharge on international visitation..."

Though checking each visitor's nationality could create long lines at park entrance stations, the PERC researcher suggests that international visitors be given the option of paying the surcharge electronically in advance of their trip to the United States or that parks "leave collection or enforcement of the surcharge to some point beyond physical gates, similar to how some state parks check passes in parking or other areas."

"Relatedly, the fact that many international tourists visit national parks via tour buses could make implementation simple if it allows for coordination of payment with or even remittance of fees from commercial operators," he added.

In concluding his argument for a foreign visitor surcharge, Watkins pointed out that, "[D]ozens of countries around the world have set the precedent of charging foreign tourists more to visit national parks than citizens. Adopting the approach in the United States would provide much-needed funding to make sure the U.S. park system can be sustained for visitors of all types for generations to come."