WASHINGTON—The newest income-boosting proposal from the National Park Service (NPS) will increase park entry fees to as much as $20 per motorcoach passenger and require “road-based tour operators” to purchase a $300 commercial use authorization for every park they visit, including the 303 parks at which other visitors are not charged.
Under new procedures due to take effect on Oct. 1, 2019, a $5 “management fee” also will be due for each passenger visiting the 303 fee-less parks. Detailed explanations did not accompany the announcement, but it appears it would cost up to $550 to take 50 motorcoach passengers into one of these parks.
For trips into the 114 parks at which entry fees are levied, tour operators will pay the per- person rate charged other visitors. This fee is slated to range from $3 to $20.
The $20 rate will be levied at eight parks—Bryce Canyon, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion.
The fee will rise to $15 at 40 parks and $10 or $12 at 41 parks. The charge will rise to $15 at 16 of those parks on Jan. 1, 2020. Entrance fees will be payable at the park entrance.
After paying $300 for the commercial use authorization (CUA) and $20 each for 50 passengers, an operator making one trip per year into a busy park could pay $1,300 — nearly four times the current cost.
However, the National Park Service announcement, made Oct. 19, does not clearly delineate such estimations or explain the impacts for tour operators.
“That is exactly what our owners and operators are experiencing,” said Stacy Tetschner, president and chief executive officer of the United Motorcoach Association.
In April, a number of trade organizations said they were lobbying Congress, NPS and its parent, the Department of Interior, to require a formal rulemaking process before establishing new entrance fees for tour groups. The groups included UMA, the American Bus Association (ABA), National Tour Association and International Motorcoach Group.
“We are remaining active in the industry coalition to address these issues,” Tetschner said.
Under the new plan, NPS will require tour operators to file a commercial use authorization (CUA) application and year-end annual report to each park they visit. Separate paperwork must be submitted to each park at least for the federal year beginning Oct. 1, 2019.
The current plan is the second attempt to raise fees charged tour operators. In October 2017, NPS announced plans to double or triple entrance fees at the 17 most popular parks to offset $11.6 billion in needed repairs and improvements at the 417 national parks.
Public feedback to last October’s proposal was overwhelmingly negative. The National Parks Conservation Association found that 98 percent of the 110,000 public online comments submitted to NPS were negative.
NPS proposed another set of fee hikes for individual visitors last April. The specific effects of those hikes on charter groups were not clear, but the ABA analysis found that those fees could have been even more costly to the industry than the October fees.
ABA estimated the current cost of visiting a popular park at $350: $200 for a CUA and $3 each for 50 passengers in a motorcoach making one annual trip.
ABA found that the October 2017 proposal would have imposed a $300 entrance fee, $300 for a CUA and an additional $250 in CUA management fees, assessed at $5 per passenger. If the operator took one group to the park during the year, that trip would have cost $850.
The current NPS plan clears up one area of concern—whether CUAs must be held by the motorcoach operator, tour organizer or both.
“The responsibility for obtaining a road-based commercial tour CUA will fall on the company that packaged, priced and sold the tour. A chartered motorcoach company does not need a road-based commercial tour CUA if the tour company paying for charter service determines the origin, destination and scheduling of the trip.”
Tour operators may be spared from filing paperwork with up to 417 parks by the 2020 travel season, NPS stated in its announcement. “The National Park Service is working with a contractor to develop an online system to ease the application and reporting process for operators. We anticipate the system will allow applicants to submit multiple applications at one time.”
In April the tour industry groups said they planned to lobby Congress to amend the 2019 federal appropriations bill to require the Department of Interior to undertake a new rulemaking on the group fees. This would be accomplished by directing the National Park Service to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, which applies to many rules issued at the discretion of federal agencies and covering issues such as rates and costs.
