How would a name change affect the draw of The Ahwahnee Hotel?/Kurt Repanshek
Would "The Ahwahnee Hotel" still be the grande dame of national park lodging if called by another name? Would you stay at the Old Faithful Inn no matter what it was called? How much is the name "El Tovar Hotel" worth?
Those questions arise in connection with potential name changes, and possibly a court battle, involving iconic lodges and even places in Yosemite National Park, where the current concessionaire claims it owns the longstanding names to lodgings and some places and won't relinquish them without compensation if it doesn't win an upcoming 15-year concessions contract in the park.
National Park Service officials currently are soliciting bidders for a long-term contract that would take effect in 2016. The Park Service in that contract places a $29 million total on possessory interest that would be due Delaware North Co., the existing concessionaire, if it did not win the new pact. But DNC has added another $65 million to that total. Most of that sum, $51 million, is ascribed by DNC to "intellectual property" tied to "virtually all of the place names within Yosemite National Park under which it operates Concession Facilities," according to Park Service documents.
The Park Service has not included DNC's intellectual property claims in its possessory interest sum, and so in the prospectus says it would allow a concessionaire to "choose to re-name (subject to approval by the Service) the Concession Facilities it operates, including The Ahwahnee Hotel, Badger Pass, Curry Village, Wawona Hotel, and Yosemite Lodge" rather than incur those claims.
Bids for the contract are being accepted through January 21. Whether any company has bid on the contract is unknown, park officials said Wednesday.
Also unknown is how much value a company hoping to land the lucrative contract places in the names "The Ahwahnee, Yosemite Lodge, Badger Pass, and Curry Village," and whether it would agree to pay $51 million to retain them.
"Under all future alternatives, facilities such as The Ahwahnee, Yosemite Lodge, Badger Pass, and Curry Village will continue to be available to all visitors for use and enjoyment, regardless of the place name," park spokesman Scott Gediman said Wednesday via email. "We cannot speculate on the interests of prospective bidders to retain the names of the buildings."
The Yosemite situation is just the latest concessions headache the Park Service is facing. At Grand Canyon National Park the agency opted to try to make the concessions contract for South Rim more enticing to companies beyond the existing concessionaire, Xanterra Parks & Resorts, by buying down $100 million in possessory interest, also known as Leasesholder Surrender Interest, owed the company.
That decision spurred a lawsuit by Xanterra and led to a temporary one-year contract for the company while Grand Canyon officials try to negotiate a 15-year contract to run the El Tover, Bright Angel Lodge, Maswick Lodge, Phantom Ranch, and other concessions on the South Rim. To come up with the $100 million, the Grand Canyon borrowed $75 million from 88 other park units as well as the Washington, D.C., headquarters.
Whether DNC might sue over the Park Service's decision not to list the additional $65 million in possessory interest it claims it would be owed if it lost the Yosemite contract is unknown. Gediman said Wednesday that the company has not notified the Park Service that it would go to court over the matter. He would not speculate on whether competing companies would place a lower value on the concessions contract if it had to change the various lodge and place names.
Also unknown is whether the Park Service would go to court to maintain the names without having to pay DNC for the right. Designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, The Ahwahnee Hotel was designated as a National Historical Landmark in 1987, as was the Wawona Hotel. Curry Village is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The situation also raises the question of whether other concessionaires in other national parks would make similar intellectual property claims when calculating their possessory interest.
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Comments
Good grief.
Indeed, Magaera.
I couldn't resist a little satire in response to this story. If the "name" of the hotels has so much value, maybe the NPS should decide to charge DNC for the "rights" to use the name "Yosemite" in the website the company uses to sell reservations for those hotel rooms, or even for the use of the likeness of a park icon in the company's logo.
Then again, if the "value" of these lodgings would be reduced under a different name, maybe the NPS should just require the company to rename them to something "generic" and then reduce the prices of rooms by a percentage based on DNC's assigned "value" for those names :-)
This argument is just like the argument the LeRoy family used to try to be compensated for the name "Tavern on the Green" when they were forced out by New York City in 2009. They took it to court and lost. The court ruled that the trade name was owned by the City of New York and that Warner LeRoy had trademarked the name "fraudulently" in 1981. It was shown that there had been a Tavern on the Green in the same place in Central Park since 1934, giving the city a protectable interest in the name. Now the Ahwahnee Hotel, for example, opened in 1927 and has operated under that name since. On its own website, DNC itself states "Since 1993, when Delaware North began its first parks contract at Yosemite National Park in California...". So it would appear the the Ahwahnee operated for almost 60 years before DNC came into the picture. I would say that the NPS has a strong argument concerning ownership of the name. I would speculate the same argument applies to the other properties.
I agree but apparently the courts didn't or the NPS didn't have good representation. Not only did they drop the ball in not citing at the beginning of the DNC's tenure that the names belonged to the assets for use by the operator during their term of operation but now the DNC ended up being the big winner here. One oddity about changing historic names I never got the rational for the 1970s era changing the names of the campgrounds from their historic numbers to the cloying and trivial names and the removal of those handsome craftsman style backlit entrance signs that were architecturally sympathetic to the craftsman style of the old valley park service buildings like the auto shop, the clinic (once called a hospital) and the post office next to a visitors center. The only campground that retained its historic name was Camp 4 favored by mountain climbers and serious regular campers. The NPS changed that to "Sunnyside" but those regulars raised so much cain the NPS knuckled and restored the original name. IN changing the others, they fixed what wasn't broke.
Nobody had really thought of this before, so it's not surprising that they "dropped the ball" as you state. This simply isn't something one thinks of until it actually happens.
What was actually trademarked was "The Ahwahnee" in 1988 by the previous owner, who sold it to DNC. "Ahwahnee" is trademarked by a flooring company. I'm not sure why "Ahwahnee Lodge" cannot be trademarked except that it would fall under 'Hotel and Restaurant Services.'
"Yosemite" has been trademarked 31 times for products as varied as shoes, beer, canned fruit and cars. Not once for 'Hotel and Restaurant Services' though DNC does have the trademark for "Yosemite" for 'recreational services; namely, providing recreational activities and facilities in a national park.' How this got through the patent office I will never know. It was registered in 1995. "Yosemite Lodge" was first registered in 2003.
The most unbelievable trademark granted was "Yosemite National Park" for nearly any dry good one can think of (clothes, paper items, metal items, kitchen utensils, etc). It was approved in 2003 and renewed in 2013.
Sometimes don't you just want to hit these guys in the face with a big cream pie ??
Can I give you a "like"?
I am a frequent visitor of the Grand Canyon, both North and South rims. I have used almost all of the facilities and I can honestly state that the service provided by DNC is far less than that service provided by the Fred Harvey Company. I am all about people being rewarded for their good service but I also think that vendors should be held to task for less than good service. Why is the NPS even talking to these guys about the use of the facility names. Those names were placed on those facilities at the beginning of their existence and should remain in place forever. The new provider should not have a say in the re-naming of these American Icons and the existing provider should have no trademark license for them either. If they can't market these facilities without changing their names then they should be in a different business!
Gutz, some other kinds of pies also come to mind.
Lee, here is another one, an article in the Fresno, California Bee today stated that Delaware North is succeeding in trademarking the name Yosemite National Park. DNC now claims ownership of the name if used on merchandise. This is simply outrageous. So much for the unregulated supply side trickle down or neo liberal economics. Interesting interview with former chairman of the Federal Reserve in Time magazine. Mr Greenspan admits many mistakes, not the least of which was his response to opposition to banking regulation. His answer, " of course I was wrong, you have to regulate the system". He went on say "my concern about regulation is that it's more vindictive than curative" . I think many citizens would feel it has not been harsh enough for those persons responsible for making the decisions in approving the illegal activities they are being fined for. In any case I respect Mr. Greenspan for speaking out on this issue.
What does " supply side trickle down or neo liberal economics.", what ever that is, have to do with DNC getting a trademark? If there is any "fault" here, it is the NPS not protecting itself by getting or contractually protecting the trademark in the first place.
Ummm, this happened around 2003? It was renewed most recently in 2013.
dahkota, interesting, do you have any further information on the issue, it would help some who are concerned about it.
http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp
http://trademarks.justia.com/763/65/yosemite-national-park-76365484.html
http://trademarks.justia.com/search?cx=001017683474852908061%3Aoct7h3tcd...
http://trademarks.justia.com/owners/dnc-parks-resorts-at-yosemite-inc-36...
http://trademarks.justia.com/owners/yosemite-concession-services-corpora...
Dahkota - you seem to be somewhat familiar with Trademark issues. Does the protections extend only to the specific designs displayed in the last link or to any use of the YNP? Seems like it must be the former giving the Park Services own use of the name.
Dahkota, my question also. It is understandable that the concession trademark its own logo, but I am unclear on how that applies to place names. I suppose the logos on vehicles, sale items inventory, etc. would have value, an interesting issue. There is an excellent article in the Fresno Bee highlighting some of the issues in this very profitable but complicated contracting process.
Yet doesn't it all come down to one thing?
$$$$$$$$$
For more information on this subject, please visit http://www.yosemitepark.com/questions.
DNC Parks & Resorts at Yosemite
Thank you DNC - that was quite informative. What I found most interesting is that the actual asset valuations - both tangible and intangbile are only estimates and not something that has been determined through arbitration as was suggested earlier. As I have said all along, those estiamtes apparently are too high and need to be revised downward.