National Park Service, America is preparing itself to celebrate its centenary celebrations in 2016.However the main concern they have is as to whether they will be getting a lot of visitors. Over the last 10 years, people had almost neglected visiting National parks. Stats reveal the story by itself.
Overnight stays decreased to 20% and camping fell to 24% between 1995 and 2005. Even the world’s famous Yosemite national park, usually thronged with visitors in summers, is not an exception.
Last year, around 569,000 holidaymakers visited Yosemite, which is about 20% less than a decade back. In last two years only 13% percent, African Americans went to the National parks, states a report.
The poor performance by the parks compelled the U.S. House of Representatives to think of means to increase the numbers of visitors.
Jon Jarvis, director of the park service’s Pacific West region said:
Let me assure you that the leadership of the service is talking about this and spending a fair amount of time trying to understand the trends. You don’t have to have statistics and surveys to recognize that the visitors we are seeing do not reflect the diversity of the United States.
The most frequent visitors too have stopped visiting the parks and are going for excursion elsewhere. Trends has changed in favor of extreme adventure sports and especially mountain biking, which are not permitted in the in many national parks. While families with children, prefer vacationing in theme Parks, mostly located in the city-centers.
The biggest problems these parks face is their distances from the populations. A life without love for nature is empty all the more reason to take the situation seriously.
Via: latimes
