Interior Secretary Doug Burgum Floats Raising Entry Prices For International Visitors At National Parks

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing last week, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum spoke about the potential revenue from increasing entry prices for international visitors at National Parks.

Transcript

00:00Gentlemen, as time has expired, the chair recognizes the gentleman from California,

00:03Mr. McClintock, for five minutes.

00:06Thank you. Mr. Secretary, first, I want to thank you for your responsiveness to my community's

00:13concerns over the situation at Yosemite. Relaxing the reservation system was a good first step.

00:21Ultimately, I think we need to restore full public access to the public lands.

00:25As you know, Yosemite was originally set aside for, quote, public use, resort, and recreation,

00:34but over the past several decades, that attitude's changed to what can best be described as

00:39look, but don't touch. The attitude of the last two superintendents was entirely dismissive.

00:45Indeed, I would say contemptuous of the public and of the gateway communities.

00:51Now that we've got a vacancy in the superintendent's office and in the NPS director's office and

00:57a new administration, I think we have a priceless opportunity to restore the original vision

01:02for the park and for the park system. For example, Yosemite continues to have roughly only half

01:08the rooms, half the campsites, and half the parking spaces as it had prior to the 1997 flood.

01:16Nobody was appropriated to restore these facilities, but they never were.

01:21About 10 years ago, the Merced River Plan was used as an excuse to remove additional amenities

01:26for visitors. Overcrowding in the park can be solved either by further restrictions on

01:32access, which is the bureaucracy's preference, or by expanding capacity and expediting guest processing

01:40at the gates, and encouraging visitation beyond the valley itself to other features within

01:45the park, which is the preference of the gateway communities, and dare I say it, of all the

01:51visitors.

01:52On my first visit with the management 14 years ago, I noted a placard in the conference room

01:57that read, is it the right thing for the park? And I said, that's exactly the wrong question.

02:03The right question is, is it the right thing for the park's visitors? And that's the central

02:09problem, as I see it, in the attitude of the NPS bureaucracy nationwide. And I, for one,

02:14would like to see a new NPS director and a new Yosemite superintendent that are not wedded

02:20to the bureaucracy, but rather have hospitality experience in the national parks, and who will

02:26take the side of the visitors and not the bureaucrats. So I wanted to get your thoughts on the record,

02:31and put it bluntly, whose side are you on?

02:34Well, I want to say, again, I appreciated the opportunity that we had to speak earlier,

02:39and appreciate your comments that just made right now. One takeaway from our earlier conversation,

02:44when I'm visiting a national park now, I've requested at each park that I have an opportunity

02:49to have a separate visit with gateway community leaders, to understand their perspective of how

02:55we, the park service, are operating as a neighbor, how we can work more collaboratively, how we

03:01can help the business opportunities there, and how decisions that we might make, reservation

03:05systems, lodging, et cetera, would have impacts on that. So-

03:08And by the way, I can say that my gateway community say that that's a breath of fresh air. Thank

03:13you again for that. And I look forward to visiting Yosemite with you, and meeting with the gateway

03:21community leaders there. So looking forward to that.

03:24With respect to the attitude of the park service, orienting back to hospitality as its principal

03:31function, what can we do in that regard?

03:33Well, I think we're, there's lots of things we can do to preserve these last best places,

03:40but as you say, but we can still do the things that we need to do to create a more positive

03:44visitor experience. One of the things that we're looking closely at is the, I think we're way

03:50undercharging as a nation for international visitors. We've done a study of the, of what

03:57gets charged when you, if you were going to go see the, you know, gorillas in Rwanda, if

04:02you're going to go to the Galakos Islands, you know, it's $500 a day or higher in some of

04:07these locations, and we'll take-

04:09I'm not entirely sure we want to discourage international visitors from, from visiting our

04:14parks either, but we need to be sure that their capacity of, can accommodate those who want

04:19to come, and that the, the park staff is oriented toward the visitor experience first and foremost.

04:26Right. We have, we, there could be a billion dollar revenue opportunity without discouraging

04:30visitors, just a, an international visitors, particularly if they're coming here as part

04:34of a tour. Yosemite is one of the places they want to see, and in some cases on these

04:38bus tours, we're charging them less than we're charging an American family. And that revenue,

04:43if it could be redirected back towards deferred maintenance, staffing, a number of things that we can do,

04:49that would be fantastic. Well, and, and, and contracting out of a lot of services, getting back to the

04:54discussion you had earlier about doing more, more efficiently, that's critically important.

04:59You know, I, I looked at all the brouhaha over staff cuts at Yosemite, it turns out it was 10

05:04probationary positions out of more than 500, and you're actually increasing the summertime

05:09staff by, by 30 part-time positions. They complained, well, you're getting rid of the locksmith. So, well,

05:15wait a second, the concessionaire has our own management department, and there's a locksmith

05:23within 20 minutes of every one of the gateways to the Yosemite National Park. Why aren't you

05:27contracting that out? Why are you hiring a park ranger, putting park rangers in position where they

05:33have to be cleaning restrooms? Why don't you get a contract with a local janitorial service? They do a

05:37far better job at far lower costs. So anyway, thank you for those innovations. Exactly. Thank you.

05:43You know,

Category

Transcript

Recommended