May Visitation to Yellowstone Surpasses Previous Year

Date: June 9, 2016
Contact: Morgan Warthin, [phone]

With the busy summer months still ahead, visitation to Yellowstone National Park for the first five months of 2016 is up 14.65 percent compared to the previous year. Visitation for May alone is up 15 percent.

All of the park’s five entrances showed an increase in vehicles for the month of May compared to May 2015. The West Entrance recorded the largest increase in May, with 9,175  more vehicles than May 2015. The most striking increase in vehicle traffic this month was with buses. There were 48 percent more buses (594 vehicles) this May compared with May 2015. 

While many factors could be at play, park managers point to the National Park Service’s Centennial year, marketing and tourism promotions by the states of Montana and Wyoming, and lower gas prices as influences in the record number of visits to Yellowstone so far this year.

	Recreational Visits 2016	Recreational Visits 2015	Change
January	30,621	28,091	9%
February	36,327	34,343	5.7%
March	22,924	22,989	(1%)
April	59,253	46,600	27%
May	444,817	386,064	15.2%
Total Year-To-Date	593,942	518,087	14.64%

Detailed park visitation information and additional information on how these statistics are calculated is available online at https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/Reports/Park.