I know this has already happened at Flamingo, but if you love our national parks like I do, let your voice be heard.
There is a new proposal that has been submitted by a committee to the Department of Interior to privatize the National Park Campgrounds to better “meet visitors expectations”. “The committee largely is made up of representatives from the tourism, manufacturing, hospitality and recreation industries”. The proposal if adopted would have private companies manage the campgrounds, adding Wi Fi, food trucks, rental tents, cabins, etc... It would increase campground fees to be competitive with surrounding private campgrounds, and black out senior citizen discounts rates during the campgrounds busy season (in effect pretty much eliminating the senior discount). Anyone that knows me, knows that I am a conservative and capitalist at heart, but this is a very bad proposal. My wife and I have spent the last 5 years traveling around 80,000 miles while visiting National Parks and Monuments. The beauty of the National Park campgrounds is that they are not commercialized and you can unplug and enjoy nature in its natural setting, they totally meet our expectations. One of the committees goals is to increase occupancy, the popular campgrounds are totally booked months in advance so how is privatizing the campgrounds going to increase occupancy rates? Then there is the question should we even be trying to increase occupancy rates? The National Parks are already over crowded (well documented) and experience traffic jams during their peak season, the addition of more cabins, rental tents, food trucks, etc...will only aggravate the problem. The committee is toting this proposal as a way to raise more funds for the National Parks but in my honest opinion it is a shell game by people with special interest looking to profit on the National Parks. There is plenty of business opportunities in the surrounding communities to capitalize on all the tourist that visit our parks. I would much rather see the discussion shift to a possible user fee increase than the commercializing of our public parks. People come from all over the world to visit our National Parks, at times we see more foreign tourist than US citizens, there is no other country that has anything that compares to our National Parks. I am not trying to start a political debate, and hope that it doesn’t go down that road, google proposal to privatize National Park campgrounds and form your own opinion. I am just trying to get the word out to other users of the parks so that they can contact their elected officials and the Department of Interior to let their voices be heard.
National Parks link if you wish to contact them:
https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/contact-form.htm?o=4A96D0B58DC08FB284A85DA8F601&r=/aboutus/contactus.htm
There is a new proposal that has been submitted by a committee to the Department of Interior to privatize the National Park Campgrounds to better “meet visitors expectations”. “The committee largely is made up of representatives from the tourism, manufacturing, hospitality and recreation industries”. The proposal if adopted would have private companies manage the campgrounds, adding Wi Fi, food trucks, rental tents, cabins, etc... It would increase campground fees to be competitive with surrounding private campgrounds, and black out senior citizen discounts rates during the campgrounds busy season (in effect pretty much eliminating the senior discount). Anyone that knows me, knows that I am a conservative and capitalist at heart, but this is a very bad proposal. My wife and I have spent the last 5 years traveling around 80,000 miles while visiting National Parks and Monuments. The beauty of the National Park campgrounds is that they are not commercialized and you can unplug and enjoy nature in its natural setting, they totally meet our expectations. One of the committees goals is to increase occupancy, the popular campgrounds are totally booked months in advance so how is privatizing the campgrounds going to increase occupancy rates? Then there is the question should we even be trying to increase occupancy rates? The National Parks are already over crowded (well documented) and experience traffic jams during their peak season, the addition of more cabins, rental tents, food trucks, etc...will only aggravate the problem. The committee is toting this proposal as a way to raise more funds for the National Parks but in my honest opinion it is a shell game by people with special interest looking to profit on the National Parks. There is plenty of business opportunities in the surrounding communities to capitalize on all the tourist that visit our parks. I would much rather see the discussion shift to a possible user fee increase than the commercializing of our public parks. People come from all over the world to visit our National Parks, at times we see more foreign tourist than US citizens, there is no other country that has anything that compares to our National Parks. I am not trying to start a political debate, and hope that it doesn’t go down that road, google proposal to privatize National Park campgrounds and form your own opinion. I am just trying to get the word out to other users of the parks so that they can contact their elected officials and the Department of Interior to let their voices be heard.
National Parks link if you wish to contact them:
https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/contact-form.htm?o=4A96D0B58DC08FB284A85DA8F601&r=/aboutus/contactus.htm