2016-01-15
Executive Summary
The Yosemite Nationl Park is one of the most visited place by tourists in the US and as a result, the issue of crowding is a serious for park senior management. In this case, park development strategy must change policy in the framework of park protection as well as of its visiting by tourists and rational use of the park territory for tourist purposes.
Introduction
As we know, Yosemite National Park is one of the most famous parks worldwide. This park has become more popular since 1913, when the first automobiles were being allowed to enter this park. The park has received the status of “World Heritage” by UNESCO in 1984. Its local fauna and flora is extremely diverse, and stored in the primeval form. There are five major vegetation zones. The park is the habitat of many rare animals also. In this case, the park can be considered as natural treasure as well as a source of development of the tourism industry in the US and cash inflows. The level of the park attendance grows from year to year. More than four million tourists have visited this place in 2014. Friendly environment for tourists with hotels, restaurants and other facilities is limited. The most popular place of the park is Yosemite valley (Boxal, 2013).
Increased attendance, especially from May through September every year, causes the problems of overcrowding and traffic. Approximate annual number of visitors have already exceeded four million. It should be noted, that number of international visitors are around 25% of the total (Blotkamp, Hollenhorst, Meldrum & Morse, 2010). Despite this, organized groups with guides are not so popular in the park. Tourists prefer to travel on their own by car or rent bicycles in the park. In my opinion, such situation impacts on the park development negatively.
Approaches and Results
There were a lot of suggestions to minimize overcrowding in the park. It could be “changes in traffic circulation and parking, and elimination of ice skating rink, commercial horseback riding, hotel swimming pools and raft and bicycle rentals” (Boxal, 2013). But there were no proposals for the maximize organizational tours and excursions in the park. Nowadays, organized groups are not more than 4% of total tourists (Blotkamp, Hollenhorst, Meldrum & Morse, 2010). Organized visiting of the park can help to avoid overcrowding in the most attractive places of the park.
Another serious issue of the park is limited places for tourists, which are concentrated in Yosemite valley. “A recent study found that, faced with global warming, people likely will come to a mountain national park more often and stay longer” (Nrdc.org, 2016). A daily number of tourists can exceed more than 20 000 people during summer. At the same time, there are ten times fewer sites to accommodate tourists in the park: 459 sites accommodating 2754 people (National Park Service: Yosemite, 2013). It should be noted, that campsites are more affordable for tourists than hotels. And campsite does not need large investments for construction of buildings, restaurants and others (as for hotel).
On the other hand, parking space is one more serious problem. The specialist Chiriboga (2009) wrote: “The automobile has become one of the leading causes of adverse conditions in the park”. For example, standard car can carry five people and tourist bus – up to twenty people. Increasing the usage of buses on the territory of the park can improve services for tourists and solve traffic problems.
Conclusion
In conclusion one can say, that Yosemite National Park needs effective park management
system, the main goal of which would be preservation of park attendance. At the same time, visitation would be more even during a year in order to avoid traffic and overcrowding in the park. Yosemite National Park is a crucial part of the tourism industry in the US. In this case, tourist service must be at the highest level in the park.
Implications and Recommendations
Effective park management must pursue a policy of three main directions of changes. They are the following:
promotion the use of buses to reach to a park, rather than by their own cars;
increasing the number of the campsites, elimination such facilities as swimming pools at the hotels;
increasing the number of organized groups with guides. It can allow tourists view more places in the park, which are not inferior to the beauty of the most popular Yosemite valley.
The potential results of the proposed activities are presented in figure 1.
As we can see, potential results are quite significant and can help solve the problem of crowding and traffic in the park.
References
Blotkamp, A., Hollenhorst, S., Meldrum, B., & Morse, W. (2010). Yosemite National Park: Visitor Study. University of Idaho. Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/nature/upload/Visitor-Use-Summer-2009-Study.pdf
Boxal, B. (2013). Yosemite plan calls for more campsites and parking spaces. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 15 January 2016, from http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/09/local/la-me-yosemite-plan-20130109
Chiriboga, E. (2009). People, cars cause problems for Yosemite. Our National Parks. Retrieved 15 January 2016, from http://www.ournationalparks.us/west/yosemite/growing_numbers_of_people_cars_causes_problems/
Latimesblogs.latimes.com. (2013). Yosemite National Park plan seeks to ease crowding and traffic. Retrieved 15 January 2016, from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/01/yosemite-national-park-plan-would-ease-crowding-traffic.html
National Park Service: Yosemite,. (2013). Environmental Issues. Retrieved 15 January 2016, from http://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/nature/environmentalfactors.htm
