The 16-day government shutdown drove visitation at Glacier National Park to the lowest total in October since at least 1979, when monthly records were first kept.
Visitation at Glacier Park dropped 52 percent compared to last year, according to the National Park Service.
An estimated 25,965 visitors entered Glacier last month after the park reopened followed the 16-day government shutdown, which closed national parks from Oct. 1-16. Last month’s total was 28,162 fewer than October 2012. It was the lowest October visitation on record dating back to 1979 when the National Park Service began compiling monthly visitation stats. The previous low for October was 42,362 in 1990.
Glacier Park had enjoyed robust visitation all summer and was expected to see heightened numbers for October because of the extended opening of the west side of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. June visitation was up 9.5 percent; July and August were both up 2.4 percent; and September saw a minimal decrease of 0.4 percent.
Year-to-date visitation reached 2.16 million last month, a 1.4 percent increase over 2012.
The summer tourism months between June and September are the busiest, and October consistently ranks fifth for non-resident visitation, according to state’s Office of Tourism stats.
“It definitely hurt the tourism business,” said Carol Pike, executive director of the Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce.
Data for last month’s local resort tax and bed tax collections is not available, but the early indicators appear to be gloomy.
Whitefish’s resort tax collections for September were down 5.11 percent, or $10,614 from last year, according to the city of Whitefish. The year-to-date collections, which are indicative of the breadth of tourism, remain up 7.4 percent, or $54,701.
“Our hotels still felt October was good, but they certainly were affected by the shutdown. They did have cancellations,” said Diane Medler, director of the Kalispell Convention and Visitor Bureau.
The federal shutdown cost the U.S. economy an estimated $2-$6 billion, according to a report by the Office of Management and Budget.