The latest data from the National Park Service confirms what many locals already know: Southern Utah parks drew big crowds in 2023.
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which spans parts of Utah and Arizona, leads the pack. It set a new record with 5,206,934 visitors, buoyed by rising Lake Powell water levels. That more than doubled its annual total from a decade ago and made it the most visited site in Utah last year.
Signs of the boom extended far beyond the long lines at the park’s entrance, said Judy Frantz, executive director of the Page-Lake Powell Chamber of Commerce and the local visitor center.
“The grocery stores were full. The restaurants were full. The traffic was much busier.”
In a regional economy that relies heavily on tourism dollars, she said, the crowds are a welcome relief. That’s especially true for businesses that have faced tough times in recent years with the pandemic and record low water levels in Lake Powell.
Other southern Utah parks also came close to breaking records.
Zion had its third biggest year ever with 4,623,238 guests, making it the third most visited national park in the country behind only the Great Smoky Mountains and the Grand Canyon. Canyonlands National Park welcomed 800,322 visitors for the second highest total on record.
Some of the parks have begun to take steps to adapt to this new reality.
Arches National Park is launching a timed entry reservation system in 2022. It is scheduled to restart on April 1 and run through the end of October, with reservations opening three months in advance.
Zion hasn’t gotten to the point where entry is on time, but the park began requiring advance reservations for one of its most popular hiking trails, Angel’s Landing, in 2022 in response to visitor concerns about overcrowding.
“Today we’re operating a system where we’ve issued hundreds of thousands of permits for visitors to go and enjoy this hike, and we’re meeting about 80 percent of the usage that we measured when we did the trail surveys before we implemented the trail program.” permits,” said Zion public relations specialist Jonathan Shaffer.
NPS data also show that the tourist season in southern Utah parks is getting longer, stretching over many months instead of just seeing a summer spike. Glen Canyon had significantly more visitors in March, April and September of 2023 than in those months of the previous four years. Utah’s Mighty 5 parks had more total visitors in October 2023 than each of the last four Octobers.
Frantz has seen this change firsthand in the nearly two decades she’s lived in the Lake Powell area, especially with more international tourists coming in at all times of the year.
“There was a time when, say, October to March, it was dead as nails in this town. We don’t have that anymore.”
Local leaders are working to adapt, she said, with plans for a new roundabout to ease traffic at a dangerous intersection and a streetscape redesign initiative to make Lake Powell Boulevard more pedestrian-friendly.
Residents also had to adjust.
“They don’t shop during the day. “They come early in the morning, and so do I,” said Franz. “For the locals who like to be out on the lake, they don’t go at all on the weekends.”
Despite these challenges, Franz believes the changes have been good for the community. She hopes this season will be even bigger than last year, with a decent snowpack that will likely add to the abundant runoff Lake Powell enjoyed last winter.
This illustrates the trade-off that comes with being a popular destination.
Lisa Michele Church, a community historian who recently spoke about the impact of tourism in southwest Utah as part of a Smithsonian Institution series in St. George, said the parks have allowed the region to reinvent itself — but at a cost.
“It’s a blessing and a curse for these communities because they have no way of serving all these people if they decide to move here.” But if they want to just come here and spend their money, then there are some benefits to that.
Eventually, the region’s tourism growth will reach its limit, she said — whether it’s long lines at park entrances, strained water supplies or something else — so it’s important that leaders plan to diversify their economies now.
Even for the natural wonders that have made this region a mecca for outdoor recreation, Church said, growth cannot continue to grow on an infinite curve.
“You can love him to death. … You have to really think about how to protect the very thing that saved you and make the quality of experience for tourists still valuable. … Don’t kill the golden goose.”
