Lines of cars stretched for miles, bridging the Arches National Park entrance to the highway, only for many of them to be turned away because parking lots had reached capacity. Crowds clamored for a seat on one of Zion National Park’s shuttles. Visitors took in the views at any of Utah’s five national parks — almost always next to a swarm of strangers.
Those who journeyed to Utah’s “Mighty 5” in 2021 remember these scenes. Four of the five parks achieved record visitation that year.
“No one that I know, especially not the Park Service, views 2021 as a norm or a benchmark,” said Cassidy Jones, senior visitation program manager for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association.
“We saw lots of cases of resource damage, lots of dispersed camping proliferation, lots of search and rescue operations related to heat illness and lots of traffic,” Jones told The Salt Lake Tribune.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Utah park visitation numbers have dropped since 2021 (except for Bryce Canyon National Park, which has seen an upward trend in visits since 2020), according to National Park Service visitation data. But that doesn’t mean the parks are empty — not by a long shot.
Arches and Zion have put measures in place to manage crowds, like instituting a timed-entry system and requiring reservations for campgrounds and popular hikes. Local companies like guiding services and hotels have piped up, arguing that controlling crowds is bad for business.
“People ask, ‘are you for growth or against growth?’ And it doesn’t matter,” Ashley Korenblat, CEO of Moab-based biking company Western Spirit Cycling Adventures and managing director for the nonprofit Public Land Solutions, told The Tribune. “Change is happening all the time.”
How Utah’s national parks and the businesses that depend on them adapt to change will shape the future of tourism in the state — and what Utah is known for, according to Jones.
“I can’t see why visitation would decrease unless we start having this degradation of the experience of coming to Utah,” she said, “because word gets out that all you do is sit in line and look at a beautiful viewpoint with a thousand of your best friends. I think that’s the risk of not managing actively for a high-quality visitor experience and resource protection.”
How does park visitation impact local businesses?
Utah’s national parks are in remote, hard-to-reach places. Over the years, nearby towns have offered more lodging, food, recreational activities and guiding services for visitors.
One example is Flanigan’s Inn in Springdale, adjacent to Zion National Park.
Cade Campbell, general manager for Flanigan’s Inn, told The Tribune that the hotel hosted 23,000 guests in 2021 — almost double their 2019 numbers. In 2022 and 2023, guest numbers have hovered around 18,000, fluctuating with the nearby park’s visitors.
“People come to Springdale to see Zion,” Campbell told The Tribune. “Whenever we have a government shutdown or the park is even threatened to be closed, we get cancellations. We have people cancel when they don’t get an Angels Landing ticket.”
Campbell referred to the permit system for Zion’s most popular and dangerous hike. Visitors who want to experience its jaw-dropping heights and slim traverses must first reserve a permit through a lottery system that started in 2022.
Campbell said that this change had an immediate effect on hotel reservations, with guests saying that they wouldn’t plan their stays until they had a permit in hand.
“As a whole, it has affected local businesses in a negative way,” said Campbell, who also serves as the president of the Zion Canyon Visitors Bureau, a coalition of companies around Zion. “That’s not to say it wasn’t needed, because the park had to do something, but it has affected local companies.”
Scott Cundy — co-founder of the guiding service Wildland Trekking, which offers tours at all five Utah national parks — also told The Tribune that its Utah trip numbers have decreased since 2021. Their 2022 numbers remained high, he said, but 2023 saw a more significant reduction.
But he attributes that drop-off to several factors, like a pent-up demand for international travel and inflation. Cundy said that his company is “all for the Angels Landing lottery. It really improves the guest experience.”
“From our standpoint, it’s protecting the visitor experience and pursuing a sustainable tourism model for these parks,” Cundy continued, “and not loving them to death.”
In Moab, Korenblat said that companies asserting that timed entry at Arches National Park is pushing them out of business don’t have a full understanding of the town’s economy.
A 2022 National Park Service visitor spending and experience survey found that visiting Arches wasn’t the primary reason for coming to the Moab area for the majority of visitors.
The region’s bucket-list mountain biking trails, climbing routes and river recreation opportunities mean that people come to Moab to experience much more than the nearby national parks, according to Korenblat.
“The reality is that nowhere in the foundation of the National Park Service does it say that they have an obligation to fill every hotel room in nearby communities,” she said.
A National Park Service report on visitor spending found that Arches visitors added $189 million to the park’s gateway economies in 2022. The same report concluded that Zion visitors added $492 million to local economies in 2022.
What could visiting national parks be like in the future?
Utah’s national parks have adjusted to growth and change in the past. Perhaps the most well-known adaption is the Zion shuttle system, put in place in 2000.
“The Zion shuttle is a really great example of asking visitors to change their view of what a park is and looks like in order to protect a high-quality visitor experience,” said Jones.
As a result, Jones said, Zion visitors park their cars in town and spend more time at local shops and restaurants.
Campbell has a different perspective.
“This is only the beginning of what the Park Service is going to do in general – more and more of these ticketed types of experiences. I think the Narrows is next,” he said, referring to another popular attraction in the park.
“That will have the same trickle-down effect with every location that they limit. We will be affected adversely, and we’ll have to adapt and do other things,” Campbell continued.