Grand Canyon National Park: Collaborating with the Community to Improve Visitor Experiences

Shuttle bus arrives at shuttle stop in Grand Canyon National Park © NPS

What would you do if a couple extra million people showed up at your doorstep? For two decades, visits to Grand Canyon National Park hovered near a robust but predictable 4.5 million people. Then, starting in 2015, more visitors began surging to the iconic canyon rim. Favorable gas prices, booming international visitation, and the National Park Service centennial campaign, among other factors, drew a little more than six million people to the park in 2017.

The Dilemma

While this visitation gives a welcomed economic boost to the small gateway community of Tusayan, Arizona, hosting millions gracefully is no small task when you’re a town of under 600 people. The most acute challenge? Entrance lines that frequently back up for thirty minutes or more. On a few nightmare days, the wait is a 90-minute saga, paralyzing the town’s only thoroughfare.

“Good luck getting to the post office, much less responding to an emergency,” said Eric Duthie, Tusayan’s town manager.

Community and National Park Service leaders began to consider how they might leverage the town-to-park shuttle system and the Greenway Trail, a newly constructed bike path from town into the park, to help alleviate congestion. Could they help visitors get out of the line, out of their cars, and start enjoying the canyon sooner?

Traffic at the entrance to Grand Canyon National Park. © NPS

Exploring Solutions

The transportation issue ignited a partnership. A team consisting of the Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau, town of Tusayan, and Kaibab National Forest, applied for and were awarded help from the National Park Service’s Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program in 2017. Adam Milnor, a project specialist who helps communities throughout Arizona, was brought in to lend support. At a collaborative workshop in the spring of 2018, a promising set of ideas developed by the team were presented to a wider group of agencies, business owners, community leaders and park staff to take the next step.

Dozens of realistic actions from infrastructure to marketing were identified and refined. Tribal members and small business owners from the Navajo Nation’s Little Colorado River-Cameron Vendor Association joined the workshop encouraging a collaborative effort to point visitors to the eastern entrance at Desert View, currently undergoing a large-scale remodel that emphasizes the deep native connection to the canyon.

"The greater Grand Canyon community needs to come together to find solutions that recognize the importance of the visitor experience before our visitors enter the park and after they leave,” said Grand Canyon National Park manager Jan Balsom. “This effort has allowed us all to look beyond any single solution to a community-based approach.”

While there’s no silver bullet to address congestion, there are early wins like the new Tusayan ambassadors program. The ambassadors are Chamber of Commerce employees who hit the streets of Tusayan to point confused visitors to transit and three bicycling options. Over 5,000 visitors have already been assisted since the initiative launched in May.

“We are proud to lead the ambassador initiative. Thanks to special funding from the town, we have expanded our office to the streets of Tusayan,” said Laura Chastain, General Manager of Grand Canyon Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau. “It benefits our visitors by helping them plan their grand adventure – whether it’s just for a few hours or a few days.”

The town also stepped up with funds to keep the park-operated Tusayan Route shuttle running through October and November, formerly sleepy months that have turned into high occupancy prime time.

“What’s awesome is that these common sense ways to tackle the congestion problem lead to deeper experiences for visitors beyond the typical ‘drive, park, take a photo then leave’ pattern we always see,” said Milnor, who helped package the group’s most promising ideas into an action plan last fall. “And their memories won’t all be stuck in traffic.”

Story by Adam Milnor