The Numbers Are In: 2024 NPS Visitation
Yesterday afternoon, the National Park Service quietly dropped its annual visitation report for 2024. Last year, was a record-breaking year for NPS, with 331.9 million recreation visit, which is an increase of 6.36 million recreation visits or a 2% increase over 2023. The previous record was set in 2016 with 330,971,689 recreation visits.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was the most visited national park with 12.1 million visitors. However, two NPS sites saw higher visitation, including the Blue Ridge National Parkway which came in at #2 with 16.7 million visitors.
USA Today has a good round up of these numbers if you don’t want to have to dig through the data yourself.
Note this is not the annual visitor spending report, which hopefully we will see later this year. But these numbers are a good metric for gateway communities and states to document their success in showcasing their natural, historic, and cultural assets. The NPS Visitor Use Data Portal allow for numbers to be pulled by national and park specific categories.
This data is also useful for making the case to Congress that this is not the time to be cutting funding or staff for the National Park Service.
Also, this week the Trump Administration posted a list of federal offices that would be closed either through lease terminations or property sales. This sparked widespread confusion throughout the federal government as to how employees who have been ordered by to the office are to conduct their work. The listing has been taken down but the General Services Administration says the effort has only been paused. The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCAP) has analyzed the list and found that 35 NPS offices are slated to have their lease cancelled, including 8 visitor centers. Needless to say, closing visitors centers after a record breaking year for visitation is not the way to achieve positive visitor experiences. The analysis of the NPS office slated for closure is attached, so you can review and be ready to defend visitor centers and other tourism assets when this effort is activated.
The letter to Congress opposing cuts to staff of the federal land management agencies garnered nearly 500 signatures, including top tourism offices. Kudos to all who signed, this was an outspending effort. Text of the letter and signatures is attached.
The budget continuing resolution runs through March 14. Congress is working to pass a bill to fund the federal government through the rest of FY25, which runs to September 30. I am tracking the details and will keep you updated on the impact to tourism. Hopefully, they can workout a straight budget extension and avoid a government shutdown.