by Ellen Heyn, Digital Media Director
While millions of national park goers postponed their trips to the Grand Canyon during the pandemic, canyon tourism is making a comeback.
According to a new National Park Service report, over 4.5 million people visited Grand Canyon National Park in 2021, shelling out $710 million in local gateway communities. All that spending supported over 9,300 jobs, $324 million in labor income, and $945 million in economic output.
Grand Canyon National Park is a big piece of Arizona’s economic pie. But what do these numbers mean? How much money do people spend at the canyon? What kinds of tourism jobs are available? What economic benefits trickle from the park into gateway communities?
Let’s break down the numbers of Grand Canyon National Park’s economy.
Assuming you arrive by vehicle, a trip to Grand Canyon National Park will cost a minimum of $35 in entrance fees.
You’ll probably top off your gas tank at some point during your visit. You might grab some food or drink from one of the many restaurants. The kids will definitely ask for ice cream. Want to go to the IMAX theater in Tusayan? That will be $10 a piece, please.
Park campgrounds will put you back around $20 per night, while hotels and lodging on the South Rim typically range from $100 to more than $400 per night. Book a helicopter tour ($220-$500 per person), sunset jeep tour ($120 per person) or mule ride ($155+ per person), and your national park getaway balloons into a spendy vacation.
Multiply that by millions of visitors each year, and the Grand Canyon becomes an economic engine. According to the park service report, here’s where visitors spent their $710 million in 2022:
The National Park Service employs a range of staff: interpretive rangers, law enforcement officers, hydrologists, geologists, biologists, helicopter pilots, custodians, maintenance workers, health care workers, public information officers, cultural resource specialists, and more. Many jobs are seasonal. Permanent full-time positions are fewer in number and harder to get, as preference is given to current federal employees.
Although the Grand Canyon is the traditional land of at least 11 Native tribes and nations who maintain cultural ties to area, only about 6 percent of park employees are Native, something the park is working to change.
You don’t have to wear green trousers, a standard-issue gray shirt, and flat-brimmed hat to work at Grand Canyon National Park. There’s a plethora of job opportunities through concessionaires — private companies that work with the park service to provide transportation, retail, tours, lodging, restaurants, and other services.
Grand Canyon National Park has over 20 concessionaires, the majority of which are river rafting outfitters. The two national concessionaires that provide almost all services on the South Rim are Xanterra and Delaware North. They employ the people who cook your food, wash your dishes, clean your room, book your shuttles, and ring up your souvenirs. Electricians, kennel workers, mechanics, bus drivers, accountants, and more all help millions of people experience Grand Canyon National Park.
You can’t visit Grand Canyon National Park without passing through a town on your way. The local economies in Flagstaff, Williams, and Tusayan are built on Grand Canyon tourism. Just look at the businesses along their main streets — Grand Canyon Cafe, Grand Canyon Spirits, Grand Canyon Chocolate Company, Grand Canyon Railway RV Park.
As tourism dollars flow into gear shops, restaurants, hotels, art galleries, gas stations, and grocery stores in these towns, they help pay wages and create jobs. The impact ripples: to keep up with demand, businesses buy supplies and services from other local businesses; locals spend their income in their communities.
But not all gateway towns benefit equally. Native communities, and the original caretakers of the land — land that was taken from Native peoples to form Grand Canyon National Park — have been largely left out of the economic impact loop. And while individual Native entrepreneurs are working to tap into the tourism economy via cultural tourism experiences like Shash Diné and Big Hogan, sometimes with the help of Native business incubators and networks like Change Labs, there is significant work to be done building a more sustainable and equitable tourism economy in partnership with Native communities.
One important step is Emergence 2022, an intertribal summit connecting Indigenous entrepreneurs, tourism professionals, and community leaders from the Grand Canyon region to explore new avenues for Native entrepreneurs to participate in the Grand Canyon’s tourism economy and ensure a more just and equitable division of the tourism pie.
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