Two National Park Service sites — Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico and Cabrillo National Monument in California — will move forward with entrance fee increases next month.
Starting January 2, the cost to enter Carlsbad Cavern will be $12 per person, up from $10. The park last increased its entrance fee in 2012.
“Entrance fees are vital to funding a variety of visitor services, facility improvement projects, and resource protection efforts," Superintendent Doug Neighbor said. “For example, fees funded the current primary elevators modernization project.”
At Cabrillo, the seven-day entrance fee for vehicles will boost to $15, up from $10, starting January 1. Motorcyclists will pay $10, while walk-ins and bicyclists will be charged $7. This is the second increase in 31 years.
Eighty percent of the fees remain within the park where they were collected. The other 20 percent is distributed to parks that do not collect fees.
Comments
A few statistics on Carlsbad Caverns. I draw no conclusions:
Fiscal Year 1998: Base Budget $4.25 million Visitation: 518,000 FTE: 109
Fiscal Year 2016: Base Budget $5.28 Million Visitation: 438,000 FTE: 51
Difference 1998 to 2016: Budget +24% Vistation: -15% FTE -53%
Inflation equivalent to 1998 is $6.4 million so it has gone down in real dollars. Given the loss in visitation only down about 150k though so the cuts haven't been savage by any means. Smartphones, podcasts and other tech advances probably make up for most of thoise FTE positions anyway. Not sure it would be possible to spend a lot of extra money at Carlsbad Caverns save for maybe fixing the elevator.