New fees for foreign tourists could mean an economic drop at the Grand Canyon

Starting in the new year, the Trump administration is making it more expensive for international visitors to go to a number of national parks, including the Grand Canyon.

The Interior Department says foreign tourists will be charged $250 for an “America the Beautiful Pass,” which the agency describes as providing access to more than 2,000 recreation areas managed by six federal agencies; the same pass costs $80 for Americans.

International visitors who just show up at the entrance gate at the Grand Canyon and the nine other parks will have to pay $100 per person to get in; right now, the charge is $35 per vehicle.

" Our national parks, especially in the West, are one of the main reasons, you know, international visitors come here. They want to go to those kinds of places that, you know, that they don't, don't really have at home," said Kathleen Andereck, a professor in Arizona State University’s School of Community Resources and Development, which includes the tourism program.

She also said it may take a little while to get a real sense of the impact of this change, since tourism at many national parks really starts to pick up in the spring.

She spoke on The Show about the higher entrance fees for international visitors at the 10 parks.

Arizona State University

Full conversation

KATHLEEN ANDERECK: Tourism is subject to a lot of outside forces. That doesn't really have very much to do with, you know, the management of tourism.

And certainly one of the main ones is political policy. And that can be policy related to visas, immigration, you know, prices, all of those things are part of it. And, tourists are particularly concerned about value for money. So, prices are a huge part of their decision-making process when they decide where they're gonna go.

So, typically, increase in price means a decrease in demand. It's not unusual for national parks in a variety of countries to charge visitors from other countries more than charging residents.

But the reason for it is different than this. This tends to be more, at least it would appear on the surface to be more about, you know, getting additional money out of international visitors, where in most countries, it, it's kind of the other way around. It's less about, income from, from international visitors, is it, is about making prices affordable for residents. So, so that's one thing that we kind of see going on.

Another thing is that tourists are particularly concerned about safety. So some of the things that we've been seeing going on with immigration rates and so forth, especially for someone from another country, doesn't feel very safe and secure.

Another thing that we see, is that, you know, people want to go places where they feel welcome. And the issues related to visas and increasing prices, you know, are making people feel like we really don't want them here. And I don't think that's true, at least not from the tourism industry, but, but that is a perception out there.

And, you know, there's a lot of competition. There's a lot of choices, including for national parks. And if they're feeling like, you know, prices are too high here, they're feeling like their safety is compromised, and they're not feeling very welcome, they'll just pick another place to go.

MARK BRODIE: Do you think that tourists make the distinction between why, you know, international visitors might be paying more than resident or citizen visitors as you referenced, is it a matter of trying to keep the parks affordable for people who live there versus just trying to get more money out of international tourists?

I'm just wondering, like in this case, will visitors say, well, yes, they're charging me more and it's because of this reason I don't like, so I'm not gonna go as opposed to, well, they're trying to keep it, you know, affordable for people who live there, so that's fine, we'll just pay it.

ANDERECK: No, I, I don't think it will be perceived that way. It, you know, a national park, you know, the bigger parks like the Grand Canyon, are, you know, $80 to go in. So they're far from being inexpensive for residents.

What we're talking about the differential in prices, we're talking about a very minimal or zero entry fee for residents in countries where people really can't afford those kinds of prices. So, no, I, I, I definitely think it's going to be viewed more as a way to just get money, more money out of international visitors.

Certainly, the parks could use funding, you know, they're, they're quite underfunded and there's a huge, you know, maintenance backlog. I'm sure you've heard that, you know, the Grand Canyon is, the South Rim is somewhat closed at the moment because of the breaks in the water main, and it's gonna cost a fortune to fix that. But, so, so there's a lot of, of things kind of at play here.

But considering a lot of the other policies that have been happening over the past year or so. I really do think that international visitors are viewing it as just getting more money and that we really tend to not want them.

BRODIE: Do you see it as significant that international visitors will be paying per person in addition to a higher fee, because typically when you drive into a national park, you pay one fee for the car regardless of how many people are inside of it.

ANDERECK: That is correct. And normally, it's one fee, for a few days. It's not just for, for one entry, and it is for the car. The fees they're talking about, you know, if a family's visiting, they're, they're not gonna pay those fees. It's just, you know, it's, it's just too much.

So, I, I think this is gonna be, you know, kind of bad news for international visitors and, you know, you could always make the case to, Mark, that, you know, a lot of our parks are overvisited, and you could make the case that maybe this will be a partial fix to that over-tourism problem.

But there's a lot of other implications for communities near these parks that are pretty heavily reliant on visitors and, and that includes international visitors. So, so, by and large, on the balance, at least my personal opinion is this is not a good thing.

BRODIE: So you referenced the situation at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. I want to ask you about that, sort of in the context of these fee changes and of course, the context of the fire that burned down the lodge on the North Rim earlier this year. What does all of that mean both for Grand Canyon National Park? 

And as you alluded to, you know, some of the towns Tusayan and others that are right outside the park that are pretty heavily reliant on tourism and their dollars.

ANDERECK: Yeah, that is true. I would say, you know, the, the fee increase, sort of setting that aside for the time being with the, you know, water being shut off.

It's possible that's good for Tucson and Williams, right? Because maybe more people will, will stay there because that's gonna be the option. Those places fill up kind of fast though.

So, so in the short term, you know, it's still gonna be, you know, bad for tourism. And, and certainly the North Rim, you know, that's kind of a whole other story with the fire and the lodge burning down, and the entire area being closed off for so long.

And of course, now it's closed for winter because they close in the winter up there, but, so the, the Grand Canyon is likely to have, you know, a, a declining visitation, and the communities nearby are likely to, you know, suffer a bit from that.

BRODIE: Do you think that this all might have an impact on the state more broadly, given the importance of tourism to the economy and as you're suggesting, given the idea that there may be fewer international visitors coming here, does that have any implication for the state overall?

ANDERECK: Oh yeah, absolutely, because, you know, a lot of, we get a lot of tax revenue for visitors and that doesn't matter too much, you know, where they are. If they're up in northern Arizona, you know, that tax revenue comes into the state's, state's coffers.

And a lot of people who, who go to the Canyon and some other areas like that come, you know, fly into Phoenix, and they may end up spending some, you know, time down here, too.

And just, you know, the downturn in international visitors just in general, it's just kind of not even considering the, the impact of, of national parks, with that, with that downturn, it's gonna absolutely affect us, you know, pretty much all over the state and people who come to the resorts in, in southern Arizona, we're, we're just very unlikely to see, you know, the same numbers of international visitors that we've been seeing over the past few years.