National Park Visitation Change during 2020
Explore how COVID-19 reshaped national park visitation in Fall 2020
Why care about national park visitation?
National Park System Mission Statement
"The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. The Park Service cooperates with partners to extend the benefits of natural and cultural resource conservation and outdoor recreation throughout this country and the world."
The two main goals of the National Park System are to promote the preservation and conservation of natural and cultural resources while also stimulating outdoor recreation. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of maintaining the balance between these goals.
Understanding how the pandemic reshaped recreational visitation can help park management continue to promote preservation and recreation during unprecedented events.
Why focus on Fall 2020?
Examples of park visitation changing from average visitation trends.
The majority of national parks experienced full park closures from March - June 2020 due to the pandemic. Park closures and phased reopenings continue to occur throughout the U.S. National Parks even into 2021.
This study focuses specifically September - December 2020 because the majority of national parks were opened or re-opening from closures at this time.
Click on the bubbles to learn more about how park visitation was impacted in 2020
NPS Visitation Change Sept - Dec 2020 from average (2016 - 2019)
What changed?
Out of the 63 national parks 75% experienced changes in visitation from September - December 2020.
37% Increased in visitation from average
38% Decreased in visitation from average
25% Showed no distinct change from average
Percentage of national parks experiencing changes in visitation from average in Fall 2020
Parks in the Media
Media headlines highlighting reported positive and negative impacts of COVID-19 on national parks
Looking into the media helps to paint a picture of the various changes and impacts on national parks due to the pandemic.
Grand Teton surpassed park's busiest full year in September - Grand Teton National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Which parks changed ? and why ?
So many parks!
The 63 national parks are spread across the entirety if the United States, featuring diverse habitats, landforms, and climates.
Joshua Tree NP
Arcadia NP Shore
Parks are impacted by the environment and cities around them. Since the parks are distributed across U.S., it is difficult to determine a single force driving visitation change.
Lets explore a few factors that may be influencing visitation change.
Factors Influencing Decreased Visitation
Parks Outside of the Contiguous USA
National parks outside of the 48 contiguous experience travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Alaska
In Alaska, cruises and flights were canceled, and people were more likely to take road trips than to hop on a plane due to COVID-19 concerns.
Parks Outside of the Contiguous USA
Hawaii
Hawaii faced a similar situation where travel and tourism was halted due to the pandemic, largely impacting visitation to parks.
Grand Canyon Native American Tribes and Indian Nations
Native American Reservations
Several parks such as the Grand Canyon are surrounded by Native American reservations. Some Indigenous communities in close proximity to National parks grew concerned that increases in visitation to the parks would put them and their elders in danger.
Factors Influencing Decreased Visitation
Natural Disasters
Natural Disasters such as wildfires and severe storms are factors impacting visitation change that are not influenced by COVID-19.
California
California wildfires pose obvious impacts on National parks from dangerous conditions, poor air quality and burn damage.
Factors Influencing Increased Visitation
Busy Road to Grand Teton National Park
Proximity to Zoom Towns
Zoom towns AKA Gateway communities are cities near major tourist attractions such as public lands and national parks. Zoom Towns is a more modern term describing a community experiencing a population increase from remote workers. Working remotely grew in popularity during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Marfa and Alpine Texas (shown on map) are zoom towns near Big Bend National Park. They didn’t have the infrastructure to support the rapid increase in visitation at Big Bend in 2020. During COVID they’ve had to choose between allowing tourism and increased COVID cases or closing businesses. This imbalance has caused some issues for the locals, to the point where people in Marfa TX refer to tourists traveling from big cities as “tourons” or “tourist morons”
COVID-19 Policy
Each park had their own COVID-19 policies which were influenced by state policy.
Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas and Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico are about 30 miles apart. Carlsbad caverns National Park experienced stricter COVID-19 policy largely due to the park consisting of a cavern which is a closed space with limited capacity. One would expect parks so close together would have similar visitation. Differences in policy and park accommodations in these parks created an interesting situation.
Conclusions
All the parks were impacted by the pandemic, yet each park has it's own story. Diving deeper into these stories can help provide vital information to park management. Understanding the complex impacts of the pandemic to National Parks may help cultivate the balance between preservation and recreation of U.S. public lands.
Next time you visit a National Park maybe stop and reflect on the importance of that land and the stories it has to tell. Keep Exploring!
