Visitation at Mesa Verde National Park was up 8 percent last year. National park and national monument visitation increased in New Mexico, too, as it did across much of the West. The reasons are readily apparent: cheap gasoline, and enough economic uncertainty to convince travelers to vacation in the U.S.
Gas is still cheap. In addition, 2016 is the centennial of the National Park Service, and that additional advertising should draw tourist attention from around the world.
That is important because public-lands tourism is big business for nearby communities: $55 million in revenue and hundreds of jobs, in the case of Mesa Verde. Nationwide, the cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy from park visitation was $32 billion.
Investments in lands managed by the Park Service pay big dividends locally, so why put it on short rations? Continued judicious development (and catching up on maintenance and repair projects) makes a lot more sense. Communities near national parks and monuments have a vested interest in making sure those resources stay healthy.
Mancos, Cortez and Durango do not have the option of increasing visitor amenities within the park, and the National Park Service probably does not either, as Congress whittles away at the out-of-sight, out-of-mind demands on the federal budget. Locals who are concerned about the health of the economy should consider contacting their senators and congressmen.
What local residents can do with greater likelihood of success, though, is to invest in ways to leverage visitation by keeping visitors here a little longer — or, in plainer language, persuading them to spend a little more.
Durango offers plenty of opportunity for that. In Cortez, the attractions certainly exist, although they may not be as easily monetized. Archaeological tourism opportunities in the United States do not get any better than what’s available in the Four Corners region, but exploring in Canyons of the Ancients does not automatically create as much revenue as riding the train from Durango to Silverton and back, and there is not as much to do in the evenings. And little Mancos, which should receive a good boost from being named by Smithsonian magazine as one of the top 20 towns near national parks, probably needs to work even harder than Cortez to keep tourism dollars.
The symbiosis between parks and the surrounding area is important, because not everyone in a visiting family may be enthralled by ancestral Pueblo history, and to attract that family, the area must offer something for everyone. The parks and monuments benefit from the other activities communities can offer, and those communities certainly benefit from the presence of the parks.
It is tempting, and somewhat popular right now, to criticize federal land ownership, and it is true that tourism-related jobs tend not to pay well. But visitation is a relatively low-impact economic driver, and while it ebbs and flows based on various considerations — we can all hope to see neither an orange river nor a smoke-filled sky — it is not as fickle as energy. Just ask North Dakota.
Mesa Verde and the National Park Service deserve a lot of appreciation for bringing visitors and their vacation dollars to this region. Without Mesa Verde, some local communities would struggle far more than they do. Capitalize on that advantage, rather than trying to evict the federal government.
