Statistical abstract: 2017

Ziesler, Pamela; Singh, Prashant

In 2017, the National Park Service began its second century of caring for the nation’s most significant natural and cultural resources. NPS units received 330,882,751 recreation visits in 2017 and fell short of 2016’s record-breaking centennial year by less than 90,000 visits (down 0.03%). Recreation visitor hours were up over 19 million visitor hours (1.3%) from 2016 for a total of over 1.44 billion hours spent in parks by visitors. Sixty one NPS units set a new record for visitation in 2017 and 42 of these parks broke a record they set in 2016. Three units had over 10 million visits and 81 units (21% of reporting parks) had more than 1 million visits. Several parks passed milestone recreation visit records including Grand Canyon National Park (6 million recreation visits), Zion National Park (4.5 million recreation visits) and Glacier National Park (3 million recreation visits). Glacier National Park also saw more than one million visits in the month of July. Several factors likely influenced NPS visitation in 2017. A solar eclipse passed over the United States on August, 21, 2017. The total solar eclipse was visible from 21 park units and 7 trails and at least a partial eclipse was visible from every park in the contiguous U.S. Several parks reported exceptionally high visitation in August – Agate Fossil Beds NM and Homestead NM in Nebraska both had over a 500% increase in recreation visits from August 2016, mostly because of the eclipse. Other parks saw increases as visitors stopped by NPS units on their way to or from their eclipse viewing site. Starting in September, several southeastern and Caribbean parks experienced significant closures because of hurricanes and NPS recreation visit totals for the last four months of the year were all lower than in 2016. October had the largest decrease in visitation from 2016 of any month, mostly due to lingering closures from September hurricanes. Total annual overnight stays were also slightly down from 2016 (4% decrease). Concession operated lodging and campgrounds were up while other categories of overnights were down. Some of the increase/decrease by category can be explained by noting that campgrounds at some parks changed category from NPS operated sites to concession operated sites. In the pages that follow, a series of tables and figures display visitor use data for 2017. By documenting these visits across the National Park System, the NPS Statistical Abstract offers a historical record of visitor use in NPS units and provides NPS staff and partners with a useful tool for effective management and planning. In 2017, 385 of 417 NPS units collected visitor use data; the remainder are unable to do so for a variety of reasons, such as administration by another agency, non-federal land ownership or new parks that lack staff and facilities for management of visitor statistics. The responsibility for compiling and summarizing visitation records lies with the Social Science Program in the Environmental Quality Division, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate. The Program relies on the conscientious efforts of NPS field staff to count, record and report visitor use. This system of collecting and analyzing monthly visitor use data is combined with continuous review and assessment of park counting procedures to ensure consistency and accuracy of data. Detailed, unit-specific instructions for the units that collect data are available on the Visitor Use Statistics website (https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/). In addition to this Abstract, the Social Science Program produces monthly visitation summaries and reports displaying trends in park visitation and changes in visitation patterns over time. These reports are available on the Visitor Use Statistics website. Additional reports prepared by the Social Science Program may be found on the NPS Social Science Program subject website (https://www.nps.gov/subjects/socialscience/index.htm).

Statistical abstract: 2017

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