Yellowstone Visitation Rises

Yellowstone National Park is reporting nearly 1900 more people were counted through the park’s entrances last month for a 15 ¼% increase in recreational visits over the same month a year ago.  Non-recreational traffic into the park was up nominally as well.  However, Spokesman Al Nash points out that percentages of increase in the shoulder season are misleading they translate to relatively small numbers of people.  What is noteworthy says Nash is this year’s year-to-date increase.  Nash points out that 2012 is shaping up to see visitation second only to 2010.  Nash points out that a number of factors lead to the kind of numbers Yellowstone, Grand Teton and the Rockefeller Parkway have seen when the economy is still soft – not the least of which is the value of a national park vacation.  That, he says is what kind of experience you can get for the money spent.  He says the area is very much a family-oriented set of parks – they offer the kind of family experience that people from generation to generation want to share.  However, he also acknowledges the effort put forth by the state travel commission in marketing the park experiences as part of an overall visit  to this part of the country.  Nash says Yellowstone now has a baseline of visitation around three-million people, and the past several years have been very strong visitation years which have exceeded that mark.