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Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024
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National Parks Provides Economic Boon

A total of 438,601 visitors to V.I. National Park on St. John during 2013 spent $64.7 million in communities near the park, a new report out from the National Park Service that includes parks across the Virgin Islands indicates.

That spending at the park supported 798 jobs.

“National park tourism is a significant driver in the national economy – returning $10 for every $1 invested in the National Park Service – and it’s a big factor in our local economy as well,” park Superintendent Brion FitzGerald said.

According to Deputy Superintendent Jayne Schaeffer, the jobs were in restaurants, hotels and transportation, mainly taxi drivers. She said she doesn’t believe the statistics include the 50 people employed directly by the park.

Park visitation dropped from 483,341 in 2012, but Schaeffer said that may be due to normal fluctuations.

The National Park Service report indicates a high of 838,684 people visited in 1988. In 1957, the year after the park opened, 11,000 people visited.

As of the end of June, 262,489 people visited the park this year.

The park counts visitors by totaling the number of people who go to various beaches, stay at Caneel Bay resort, visit on boats, take land and water tours, stop in at the Visitor Center and arrive on permitted commercial activities.

The statistics show how the number of visitors dropped in the last decade. The year 2005 saw 803,040 people visit the park. The next year, 2006, the number fell to 677,289, with 571,382 arriving in 2007. A big drop off occurred in 2008, the year the economy tanked, to 469,034, with the numbers all in the 400,000s in the years after that.

As expected, the statistics show that February and March are the busiest months, with September and October the slowest.

However, long-time St. John residents can clearly see that there are many more vehicles crowding the park’s north shore beach parking lots in the past few years than in the years before. Even in the summer, they fill the parking lots and spill out into the road particularly on weekends.

“It’s crowded as hell,” long-time resident and St. John Car Rental owner Albert Willis said, adding that he couldn’t find a space at Cinnamon Bay parking lot just last week.

There doesn’t seem to be a clear explanation for this increase.

One resident suggested that more of the transient young people who spend a few years living on St. John before moving back to the mainland have cars than in past years. This could account for the weekend increase.

And there are more car rental agencies on St. John than in past years but presumably visitors who previously couldn’t secure a rental car on St. John rented them on St. Thomas and took the barge across Pillsbury Sound. That is still occurring.

The number of vacation villas is up to somewhere around 1,000, far more than a decade ago. Those people all rent cars so that may also impact the increase.

In 2013 on St. Croix, 1.5 million people visited the three national parks on that island. They spent a total of $8.5 million. Their spending supported 99 jobs, the report indicates.

Christiansted National Historic Site got the bulk of the visitors with the number coming in at 118,636. A total of 28,972 visited Buck Island Reef National Monument, with 4,791 people stopping by Salt River Bay National Historical and Ecological Park.

The number of visitors to Christiansted dropped from 126,962 in 2012. The most visitors arrived in 1986 when 196,053 people explored the site’s historic buildings. The park opened in 1952, but the statistics start at 1956. In that year, 1,200 people visited.

Visitation to Buck Island was down a tad in 2013, with 30,436 people arriving in 2012. The peak year for visitation was 1988 when 95,052 people arrived. In 1962, the year after the park opened, 6,600 people visited.

The number of visitors to Salt River was also down a bit. In 2012, a total of 5,217 people visited. It opened it 1992. The statistics start in 2006, and that year 2,526 people visited.

Joel Tutein, who is the superintendent of all St. Croix national parks, said the parks were an economic driver and attraction on St. Croix.

“It’s unique for the federal government to invest in the parks for the benefit of the local community,” he said.

The local statistics are part of a national study by the Park Service. Nationally, the report shows $14.6 billion of direct spending by 273.6 million park visitors in communities within 60 miles of a national park. This spending supported more than 237,000 jobs nationally, with more than 197,000 jobs found in these gateway communities, and had a cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy of $26.5 billion.

According to the 2013 economic analysis, most visitor spending was for lodging at 30.3 percent. This was followed by food and beverages at 27.3 percent, gas and oil at 12.1 percent, admissions and fees at 10.3 percent, and souvenirs and other expenses at 10 percent.

The largest jobs categories supported by visitor spending were restaurants and bars at 50,000 jobs and lodging at 38,000 jobs.

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