Record year: Visitors swarm into Yellowstone

Posted 10/7/10

Park visitation during the first nine months of the year has totaled about 3.41 million. The mark breaks the one-year record for visitation of just under 3.3 million set last year.

For the first time ever, Yellowstone recorded more than half a …

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Record year: Visitors swarm into Yellowstone

Posted

With three months left in the calendar year, Yellowstone National Park has already set a record for annual visitation, thanks in part to strong numbers in September.On Wednesday, spokesmen for the National Park Service and Xanterra, the park's concessionaire, attributed the high volume in part to aggressive marketing that enticed people to visit Yellowstone.

Park visitation during the first nine months of the year has totaled about 3.41 million. The mark breaks the one-year record for visitation of just under 3.3 million set last year.

For the first time ever, Yellowstone recorded more than half a million visitors during the month of September. The 550,000 recreational visitors to the park last month shattered the previous September record of nearly 490,000 set in 2009, a 12.5 percent increase from one year ago.

September was the fourth record breaking month in a row for Yellowstone.

Park Service spokesman Al Nash said park staff were busy over the summer. More visitors means more cars on the road, more traffic jams and accidents and other potential problems.

“Were there some challenges for park staff? You bet,” Nash said. “We were awfully busy this year.”

Nash said with visitation surpassing 3 million people several years in a row, that figure may become a new threshold, where in the past park staff estimated annual visitation would be about 2.7 million. That could bring future headaches as federal budgets tighten, but his crystal ball isn't that clear, he said.

Rick Hoeninghausen, marketing director of Xanterra Parks and Resorts in Yellowstone, said the aggressive marketing campaign by state tourism bureaus in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana plus regional communities helped make Yellowstone an attractive destination.

With gas prices lower this year and the appeal of well-maintained, historic features, “we look like a pretty nice option” for travelers, Hoeninghausen said. “The world's first national park.”

Nash agreed that advertising was key to this summer's success. The agencies Hoeninghausen mentioned “have done an exemplary job of marketing travel to this area,” Nash said, “with the (national) parks as a major component of their outreach.”

A recent PBS series by Ken Burns on national parks, which “heavily emphasized Yellowstone,” also helped, he said.

At $25 for a seven-day pass, Yellowstone's a bargain, Nash said.

Nash and Hoeninghausen both said that, with increased visitation, the visitor overflow is likely affecting gateway communities, with park visitors exploring outside Yellowstone boundaries. Nash noted many of those who come to see Yellowstone return on later trips to see areas they glimpsed on their first trip.

Traffic counts at the east gate show more people coming in by car or RV, but fewer by bus than one year ago.

According to Yellowstone National Park statistics reports, 68,993 people came into the park through the East Entrance in September. That's 11.7 percent more than in September 2009. Of those, 57,714 arrived by car, up 16.3 percent from September 2009.

The number of people driving RVs into the park through the East Entrance increased 1.1 percent, from 5,198 in September 2009 to 5,256 last month, according to the report.

Bus use dwindled by 13 percent from 6,870 in September 2009 to 5,958 last month.

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