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Yosemite National Park Concession Prospectus Includes Significant Lodging Changes

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Accommodations in Curry Village will change with the next concessions contract/David and Kay Scott

The recently issued prospectus for operation of the majority of Yosemite National Park'™s concession facilities includes several significant changes related to the park'™s lodging. Lodging, a major revenue generator for the winning bidder (and the National Park Service), is expected to generate from $52-$57 million in 2016, the year the new lease kicks in. This is approximately twice the amount the concessionaire is expected to generate in food and beverage sales during the same year. Retail sales generate approximately the same revenue as food and beverage. The new contract will be for 15 years with a beginning date of March 1, 2016.

The most significant lodging change is to occur at Curry Village, where the Park Service is planning to replace 52 canvas tents with cabins that include bathrooms. This will reduce the number of tent cabins at Curry to 351 and increase the number of cabins with bathrooms to 98. Curry also has 14 cabins without bathrooms and 18 motel-type rooms.

The prospectus also calls for removing 34 tent cabins (these are duplex units, meaning 17 structures would be removed) at Housekeeping Camp, leaving 232 of these units. In the High Sierra Camps, half the 22 tents at Merced Lake and four beds at Glen Aulin are to be removed.

The prospectus includes an especially stiff franchise fee of 8.6 percent of the concessionaire'™s annual gross revenues. Assuming the new cabins at Curry Village are completed on schedule before the end of the contract'™s seventh year, the franchise fee will increase by an additional six-tenths of 1 percent, resulting in a fee of over 9 percent. This compares with NPS fees of 4 percent at Mesa Verde and Sequoia/Kings Canyon national parks, 6 percent at Mount Rainier National Park, and 1 percent at Glacier Bay National Park.

In addition to a 9.2 percent franchise fee, the concessionaire is to pay an annual 2 percent repair-and-maintenance fee. Adding the California sales tax of 7.5 percent, a Mariposa County sales tax of .5 percent, a Mariposa County Transient Occupancy Tax of 10 percent, and a Mariposa County Tourism Business Improvement District Assessment of 1 percent, results in a guest at Yosemite Lodge paying $240 for a room (the price listed on the DNC site for an October stay), $27 of which represents NPS fees, plus another $45 in various sales taxes. Thus, a family staying in Yosemite Lodge will be paying over $70 a night in fees and taxes. An Ahwahnee stay would entail well over $100 per night in fees and taxes.

While the park'™s main concession facilities are in Yosemite Valley, the prospectus also covers concession operations at Badger Pass, Crane Flat, Glacier Point, Tuolumne Meadows, Wawona, White Wolf, and the High Sierra Camps. According to the NPS prospectus, each location 'œ'¦. presents unique opportunities and challenges'¦.'

Comments

Thank you Traveler on your viewpoint on this issue. It is interesting to note that the High Sierra Camps in Yosemite, the Loop trip that is, is already on a lottery. Same may someday be true for lodging and camping. We are not there yet, certainly not in the off season. This is public land. the lottery gives each person a chance, lets hope it never comes to who can afford to pay the highest price. It is even more reason why we, the owners of the public land demand our agency people set reasonable prices, if the private sector can not see a profit in that, there are non-profits that can, it almost happened, but that is another story. By the way, I did work with park concessionaires, the profits in parks like Yosemite are enormous along with top executive salary and bonus  pay, working conditions, benefits are much much less than desirable for most of their employees. It is a disgrace. EC, just curious, who is going to do the correcting if further comments are posted?


Ron, obviously it would be me, with my opinions and corresponding citations that would be doing the "correcting".

You say the profits are "enormous".  What is the profit margin?  What is the return on assets?  If non-profits can do it more efficiently and at a lower cost, why does the NPS outsource?  I asked someone (Gary?) that question earlier.  No response.  Perhaps you have one.


Frankly, I wonder how a lottery system fairer?  Because we all have an equal chance of not getting it?  I agree that it's our land, but a lottery hardly seems like a great solution to me.


In reading the Business Opportunity document of the prospectus I found this on pg 19:

"The Service takes into account the Concessioner’s expenses in providing the VTS under the NPS rate approval program. Under this program, the Service permits the Concessioner to include a VTS addition to its approved rates for visitor use of Concession Facilities and services to recover the costs of providing the VTS, because the comparables against which rates are determined usually do not provide as extensive a transportation amenity to their guests. The Service reviews the VTS operating expenses annually as part of the process for setting the rate schedule to support the VTS. Additional information regarding the VTS is located in Contract Exhibit B-6 VTS Operating Plan."

http://concessions.nps.gov/docs/Prospectus/YOSE004-16/Prospectus%20Files...


Thank you EC, I read your post more carefully, I get it. 

 

On your questions, you might want to contact the concessions office in Yosemite National Park. They can give you the most current figures. On the issue of "non-profits, I will grant you it is complicated. If my memory serves me correctly, when Music Corporation of America decided to sell out in the late 1980s, they had a buyer from Japan, but the DOI Secretary (Mr. Manual Lujan) at the time decreed a NP concession could not be sold to a foreign country. Things got complicated, the legal interest in the some of the facilities belonged to MCA, etc. Perhaps Alfred Runte can fill in here. In any case it was not until Bruce Babbitt became head of DOI that solutions were found including a large corporation who was interested, Delaware North. A family owned corporation, the head of which was a close ally and financial supporter of Mr.Babbitt in both of his runs for Arizona Governor and his short lived bid for a presidential nomination. 

 

Must keep this short, but much history here, this set the stage for much of what is happening today, including excluding a non-profit that was supported by a Park Superintendent, the environmental community, etc. Financial concerns were big issues, paying off the legal interest in MCA facilities, toxic blooms from the gas stations in Yosemite Valley, increased franchise fees, etc, but the corker was Delaware North's willingness to clean up the service station balloons from the underground gas storage tanks. All of the above was something the park had no money to do and no congressional support for.  It must be remembered we, the citizens, own all the structures in the park including the Ahwahnee Hotel. The NPS does make much from entrance fees, little from camping fees. By 2005 (again my memory, but close), the Yosemite budget roughly broke down to about 24 million base congressional  funding, 40 million gross in fee collection, 5 million from the City of San Francisco and donations from the Yosemite Fund (now the Conservancy) of 5 to 12 million a year depending on fund raising on approved projects. There were some smaller entries as well. It is an accounting nightmare with strings attached to each funding source. For example the San Francisco money can only be spent in the Tuolumne River drainage.  Fee money has many restrictions also.

 

As has been pointed out, Congress likes this, it fits well with our current mania for the Neo-Liberal privatization economic policies of the last 30 years (Friedman/Greenspan) and allows Congress to downplay the lack of funding for the NPS infrastructure issues. Both parties have had a hand in this. Fees are a big deal including the concession franchise fee, bed tax fees to surrounding counties, etc. Bottom line EC, money talks. This is only my recollection of some of the history of the non-profit issue, others are welcome to weigh in correct, etc. 


EC, there are indeed many things you cannot do.

 

One of them, as has been amply demonstrated over and over again, is to feel compassion.


In general I have been all for letting the free market dictate costs with some exceptions.  National parks would be one of those exceptions.  I am a camper too and if I had my way would love to see the only lodging be for people with their own tents.  That said, I understand camping isnt for everyone and do feel that lodging in some of the parks is rediculously expensive.  I think it is a slipery slope if we let those who can afford xyz dictate what will be in the parks.  What's next? A different fee for various hiking trails?  Want to see a spectacular water fall without crowds it's $100 per hiker vs. the little falls with crowds at $10? Want to be at an overlook during sunrise or sunset?  There will be an additional fee for that.  I fear income inequality has gotten so out of wack that pretty soon free markets wont work any longer unless you call another civil war part of a natural correction.  


Ron,

You ask me to contact Yosemite to answer my profit questions.  That just shows you don't know those answers yet you are eager to call their profits "enormous".  I believe you have made an assumption which is likely to have little validity. 

As to corporate vs non-profit you provide some interesting history but you admit that financial concerns were a major issue.  Those financials provided by Delaware North were part of their costs. The bottom line is they were able to provide equal or better services to the Park with more attractive financials for the Park.  Further these franchises are rebid creating a competitive market that keeps margins down.  Finally, you imply there was some "insider" activity between Babbit and Delaware North in the Yosemite award.  However, the vast majority of concession operations in the Parks across the country are outsourced.  Is every one of our Parks tainted by corruption?  Or is it because these corporations can provide a better product with more attractive financials to the parks and their guests.  I'm firmly in the camp of the latter. 


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