    [Senate Hearing 116-334]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 116-334

    OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPAND VISITATION AT LESSER-KNOWN NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM
                                     UNITS

    =======================================================================

                                 FIELD HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                          ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                         ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                 AUGUST 8, 2019

                                   __________

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                           Printed for the use of the
                   Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

            Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                               ______

                  U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
     37-814               WASHINGTON : 2021

                   COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

                        LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman
    JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming               JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
    JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho                RON WYDEN, Oregon
    MIKE LEE, Utah                       MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
    STEVE DAINES, Montana                BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
    BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana              DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
    CORY GARDNER, Colorado               MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
    CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi        MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
    MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona              ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
    LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee           CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
    JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
                                     ------

                         Subcommittee on National Parks

                             STEVE DAINES, Chairman

    JOHN BARRASSO                        ANGUS S. KING, JR.
    MIKE LEE                             BERNARD SANDERS
    CORY GARDNER                         DEBBIE STABENOW
    CINDY HYDE-SMITH                     MARTIN HEINRICH
    LAMAR ALEXANDER                      MAZIE K. HIRONO
    JOHN HOEVEN

                          Brian Hughes, Staff Director
                         Kellie Donnelly, Chief Counsel
                    Michelle Lane, Professional Staff Member
                    Sarah Venuto, Democratic Staff Director
                    Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
                    David Brooks, Democratic General Counsel

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                       Page
    Daines, Hon. Steve, Subcommittee Chairman and a U.S. Senator from
      Montana........................................................     1

                                   WITNESSES

    Jenkins, Palmer ``Chip'', Acting Intermountain Regional Director,
      National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.........     5
    Crachy, Hon. Doug, Commissioner, Powell County, Montana..........    11
    Bannon, Sarah, Executive Director, Southwest Montana.............    15
    O'Rourke, Toby, President & CEO, Kampgrounds of America, Inc.....    18

              ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

    Bannon, Sarah:
        Opening Statement............................................    15
        Written Testimony............................................    17
    Crachy, Hon. Doug:
        Opening Statement............................................    11
        Written Testimony............................................    13
    Daines, Hon. Steve:
        Opening Statement............................................     1
    Jenkins, Palmer ``Chip'':
        Opening Statement............................................     5
        Written Testimony............................................     7
        Responses to Questions for the Record........................    39
    O'Rourke, Toby:
        Opening Statement............................................    18
        Written Testimony............................................    20
        Responses to Questions for the Record........................    40

    OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPAND VISITATION AT LESSER-KNOWN NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM
                                     UNITS

                                  ----------

                            THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019

                                   U.S. Senate,
                        Subcommittee on National Parks,
                     Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                   Deer Lodge, Montana.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:45 a.m., at
    the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, Hon. Steve
    Daines, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. STEVE DAINES,
                       U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA

        Senator Daines. The Subcommittee will come to order. So
    that is what we do in Washington, DC, by the way, when we start
    a hearing. I sincerely want to thank everybody for coming out
    here today, for joining us. It is a beautiful day, truly, in
    Montana, and here in Deer Lodge, especially.
        We have not done an exhaustive research on this fun fact,
    but we do believe this is the first time, at least in the
    modern history of the United States Senate, that a hearing has
    been held in a barn, which is kind of fun. As some of you know,
    I am the Chairman of the National Parks Subcommittee in the
    United States Senate, which I am honored to have that role, and
    that is a Subcommittee of the Committee on Energy and Natural
    Resources of the U.S. Senate.
        I want to extend a special appreciation to the staff here
    at Grant-Kohrs, which has just been wonderful as we have been
    working to get this setup, including who you just heard from,
    Superintendent Lavelle, as well as Alan Stewart, the Facilities
    Manager, and Julie Croglio, Chief of Interpretation and
    Education, all of whom put in a lot of extra time and hours to
    make this hearing a possibility. I know that you went above and
    beyond, and I would really like to thank you for all that you
    do. It is so appreciated.
        Today is a special day, because we have the opportunity to
    bring the official work of the United States Senate here to
    Montana. I can tell you there is nothing different, in terms of
    the way the process works, from a hearing being held on Capitol
    Hill where everybody is in suits and ties and so forth or being
    here in a barn in Powell County. There is no difference in
    terms of the way this process will work. The official weight of
    this kind of a hearing, the way we will record the testimony,
    and so forth, is exactly the same as it would be in Washington,
    DC, except I would argue, it is a whole lot better out here in
    a barn. Now I think there are some folks in DC that their
    concern is, wait, you don't have air conditioning, right?
        [Laughter.]
        Jacque, you probably heard that concern, right?
        Ms. Lavelle. Yes, that is true.
        Senator Daines. Right. Well, this is why we love to call
    Montana home, don't we? In terms of even on the warmer days in
    August, we can have a hearing here in a barn and be pretty
    comfortable.
        I also want to thank staff here that came from Washington,
    DC, two staff members of the Energy and Natural Resources
    Committee. Michelle, you see she has got my back. Michelle Lane
    who is here from Washington, DC, as well as Darla Ripchensky
    who is here. These are both members of the Committee back in
    Washington, DC, and thank you for making the trip out here. I
    have already heard rave reviews from the staff saying, I cannot
    believe how amazing this place is and I think you may be talked
    into canceling the return trips to Washington, DC----
        [Laughter.]
        ----which I would not blame you one bit. Well, growing up
    in Montana like many of us here in this room, spending time
    outdoors, getting out in the backcountry, whether it is hunting
    and fishing, that is just what we do and what I did as a kid.
    Some of you may know I went to kindergarten through college
    over in Bozeman.
        My dad went to the University of Montana for college. In
    fact, my mom was pregnant with me, put my dad through school,
    once upon a time, working at the Missoula Merc back in the
    early '60s. But I was lucky enough to grow up in the shadows of
    Yellowstone National Park, and our family, like many of you, we
    back in those days, used to hop in the Griswold station wagon
    and Dad would load up me and my two sisters and we would get on
    the road traveling across Montana. We loved to visit parks all
    over the Western part of the country, but the Montana parks
    were always home for me as a Bozeman kid, as a Montana kid. But
    what I learned from that experience and those visits, whether
    it is a small family road trip, or maybe it is a bus load of
    folks coming to Big Sky Country from around the U.S. or even
    overseas. We are seeing increasingly more overseas visitors
    coming to our parks here in Montana and around the country, and
    these visitors have a huge economic impact on gateway
    communities. We know that over 5.5 million people visited
    national parks in Montana last year. Now, think about that.
    That is five times our state's population that came to Montana
    to visit our parks last year. They spent approximately--and I
    am not sure how we can tally that up easily, but we have made
    some good guesstimates--approximately $633 million in local
    gateway regions which supports over 9,500 jobs and generates
    over $880 million in the Montana economy alone.
        And while we do know that the majority of these visitors
    went to Glacier and Yellowstone, we are here today to talk
    about other parks in our state that also contribute to that
    number, like Grant-Kohrs. Of the 5.5 million visitors that came
    to see parks in Montana last year, 26,700 came here to Grant-
    Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site. You can see we have a lot
    of upside potential. That is probably the understatement of the
    hearing here, I would say. Well that is not a huge number, and
    though we are going to spend time today talking about what we
    can do to increase that number, these visitors did contribute
    $1.6 million to the local gateway economy here in Deer Lodge as
    well as supporting 23 jobs and that is a big deal for a rural
    community in Montana.
        Generally speaking, visitation across parts of Montana and
    across the country has increased over the last decade. We are
    seeing some trends. I know as I look at the Yellowstone
    numbers, as Chair of the National Parks Subcommittee, we look
    at some of these stats, the shoulder season that we always
    refer to in Montana, that time when Montana cannot quite make
    up its mind whether it is wintertime or summertime--somebody
    said the other day that Montana is nine months of winter and
    three months of hoping for summer. I heard that. But during
    this shoulder season, is that April-May time period, or in the
    fall which is sometimes the most glorious times of the year,
    that September-October-November kind of in between the winter
    seasons and summer seasons, we are starting to see a lot of
    international visitors now coming that are filling in what used
    to be more of a shoulder season downturn. We are starting to
    level some of that out.
        We saw a big spike in visitation as the National Park
    Service celebrated its Centennial in 2016. Along with an
    increase of visitors though does come some challenges. When we
    look at the fact the National Park Service has 419 units of
    which Grant-Kohrs is one of those, 30 percent of the visitors,
    about 318 million nationally, went to only 10 of those units.
        Now we understand, especially in Montana, that many people
    have their bucket list of vacation items that might include a
    trip to Yellowstone, or landing perhaps a nice trout, or a trip
    to Glacier and driving the Going-to-the-Sun Road, but I think
    there is room to expand what folks think of that perfect bucket
    list vacation spot, like showcasing the beauty and the fun of
    these other park units in Montana and that is what we are here
    to do today. We are here to take a deeper dive into how we can
    encourage visitors to stop at lesser-known parks like right
    here at Grant-Kohrs. Let's talk about who is in the best
    position to get the word out and what factors into a visitor's
    decision-making process.
        By encouraging visitors to get out and explore all of
    Montana's great parks, I think we can create truly a win-win
    situation. First, visitors might find some new favorites
    exploring places they might not have thought to place on the
    itinerary before. We can also help surrounding towns and
    communities continue to benefit from increased visitation. And
    lastly, we can help spread the visitation between parks which
    can help with this growing backlog of maintenance on our
    national parks. One of the bills we are working on right now,
    one of my highest priorities as the National Parks Subcommittee
    Chairman, is to address this issue of the maintenance backlog
    we have. It is nearly $13 billion in infrastructure backlog,
    maintenance backlog, and as Angus King--who is the Ranking
    Member of this Subcommittee and the Senator from Maine, we
    spend a lot of time together working on national park issues--
    said, ``Just think about backlog maintenance as debt and we owe
    it to our national parks to invest in them. They are
    treasures.''
        This is a bill that I hope we can get passed and put on the
    President's desk yet this Congress. So whether we are pushing
    legislation to fix this massive maintenance backlog which is
    impacting your visitation in national parks, called the Restore
    Our Parks Act, or working to bring awareness to the challenges
    that gateway communities of parks face, like we did at last
    year's field hearing in Gardiner. I had a field hearing in
    Gardiner, Montana, and we looked at the constraints in a place
    like Gardiner, places like Cooke City, places like West
    Yellowstone. We are landlocked and we are surrounded by federal
    lands, yet these communities need to expand, need to be able to
    provide employee housing, and we are running into some
    challenges there. But I can tell you the field hearing in
    Gardiner was not warm.
        [Laughter.]
        It is cool. But Montana has been a priority of mine since
    day one in Congress, so I am grateful to be here today. Before
    we move forward, I would like to remind everyone that this is
    an official United States Senate hearing. I will briefly
    introduce each of the witnesses and then each witness will have
    five minutes to provide their testimony. Following the
    testimony, I will ask questions, during which time each witness
    will have up to five minutes to respond. If you have ever
    watched one of these hearings on C-SPAN--now it is probably a
    really slow day if you are watching
    C-SPAN----
        [Laughter.]
        ----I think the only person who watches C-SPAN is my mom to
    see if I am there. But if you have watched C-SPAN, you will see
    we will conduct this hearing the same way. One thing I will be
    able to do, and I will be asking questions of the witnesses.
    When they speak, they will have up to five minutes to respond,
    but because we are not in Washington, we are not going to be
    too strict with the time although we will try to keep this on
    time, especially if we can, as we want to try to respect your
    time as well. Once we finish up with the questions, I will
    gavel the hearing out, like we do in DC, and one last reminder,
    as this is an official hearing of the United States Senate,
    there are no questions from the audience in an official U.S.
    Senate hearing. Everything said here today will be included in
    the official record. Thank you for being here to take the
    official record just like we do in Washington, DC. We
    appreciate it. So let's move on to the witnesses. It is now
    time to hear from our witnesses who are sitting down to my
    right.
        Joining us this afternoon are Mr. Palmer ``Chip'' Jenkins,
    the Acting Intermountain Regional Director of the National Park
    Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, welcome; the
    Honorable Doug Crachy, Commissioner of Powell County, Montana,
    thanks for being here commissioner; Ms. Sarah Bannon, Executive
    Director of the Southwest Region of Montana Office of Tourism
    and Business Development, welcome; and Ms. Toby O'Rourke,
    President and CEO of Kampgrounds of America, Inc. You might
    know that better as KOA.
        I want to thank you all for being here with us. At the end
    your testimony we will begin questions. Your full written
    testimony will be made part of this official hearing record.
    Mr. Jenkins, I would ask you to kick this off. Please, proceed.

      STATEMENT OF PALMER ``CHIP'' JENKINS, ACTING INTERMOUNTAIN
     REGIONAL DIRECTOR, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
                              THE INTERIOR

        Mr. Jenkins. Thank you, Chairman Daines. Thank you for the
    opportunity to present the Department of the Interior's views
    on the topic of expanding visitation at lesser-known parks. I
    would like to summarize my statement. The full one is submitted
    for the record. I would also like to request that Grant-Kohrs
    Ranch's Superintendent, Jacque Lavelle, be allowed to assist in
    answering questions?
        Senator Daines. Without objection.
        Mr. Jenkins. Thank you. On a personal note, I have worked
    for the National Park Service for over two decades, starting as
    a ranger at North Cascades National Park. I first visited
    Grant-Kohrs Ranch when I was Superintendent of Fort Clatsop
    National Memorial, which is a turnaround spot on the Lewis and
    Clark Trail on the Oregon coast. At the time, we were preparing
    for the Bicentennial celebration of the Lewis and Clark
    expedition in the early 2000s.
        My wife and my two young sons and I were spending time
    exploring the Lewis and Clark Trail, one of the lesser-known
    sites of Montana, and we were spending time working our way
    through Montana on the trail. We stopped here at Grant-Kohrs on
    the spur of the moment when we saw the sign and decided to take
    a break. We thought it was going to be a short stop to make use
    of the restroom. It actually turned into almost a full day
    visit. We were captivated by the history of ranching in
    Montana, the stories of ranch life, the magnitude of operating
    a ranch. My kids especially enjoyed learning how to rope,
    lassoing a wooden steer. This was a visit that was fun and
    educational, but it also helped me as a National Park Service
    Manager continue to learn about the untapped potential that our
    lesser-known parks have and what they can offer to visitors.
        Each and every unit of the National Park System, no matter
    its size, location, special features, or number of visitors,
    contributes to the fabric of American life and offers visitors
    an opportunity to experience an important aspect of our shared
    heritage. The National Park Service saw record-breaking
    visitation in 2016, our Centennial year, when visitation topped
    330 million. But visitation growth is varied among parks. Some
    of the lesser-known parks have had less growth, even a decline
    in visitation.
        The National Park Service has been working in a variety of
    ways, many in collaboration with partners, to promote lesser-
    visited parks. Here at Grant-Kohrs, visitation has grown from
    about 20,000 to 26,000 annually over the last decade. The key
    to this increase has been building relationships with partners
    throughout the region, including Powell County, the Chamber of
    Commerce, and local and regional tourism groups. The park
    offers unique events such as the annual Pumpkin Sunday event,
    Haying with Horses, and the Holiday Open House. The park has
    agreements with the Draft Horse Expo, and it partners with the
    Rialto Community Theatre and hosts local community events like
    last night's Movie with a Ranger and Evenings at the Ranch.
        Programs provide visitors with activities in the evenings,
    but this also encourages people staying in hotels and camping
    to visit the town and support local restaurants and shops.
    Nationally we have programs to attract visitors to lesser-
    visited parks. In 2015, the National Park Service and National
    Park Foundation launched the public engagement campaign called
    ``Find Your Park'' as an initiative for the 2016 Centennial.
    Find Your Park continues today, through traditional advertising
    in key markets, digital and social media advertising and
    special events and programs.
        Another Centennial initiative was the Every Kid in a Park
    program, now called Every Kid Outdoors. This program provides
    free passes to parks and public lands to fourth graders and
    their families. For smaller sites that do not charge entrance
    fees, the significance of the program has been the associated
    help for providing transportation and programming for nonprofit
    partner organizations. This is a successful initiative that has
    introduced a lot of fourth graders and their families to
    national parks. Yet another program that began in the
    Centennial is Community Volunteer Ambassadors. These are youth
    volunteers who help with volunteer programs that introduce
    people to the parks. At least 20 percent of these Ambassadors
    are placed in lesser-visited parks.
        The National Park Service has also made great strides in
    increasing the visibility of lesser-visited parks through
    digital and social media. Our websites are regularly updated
    with trip suggestions, thematic itineraries and other tools to
    guide people to park experiences based on interests and
    activities. It is a great way for potential park visitors to
    discover experiences available at parks they may never have
    heard of.
        We hope to continue to build on all these efforts to make
    more visitors aware of the lesser-known parks and these
    National Park Service gems. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my
    statement. Superintendent Lavelle and I would be pleased to
    answer any questions you have.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Jenkins follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Daines. Thank you. Commissioner.

      STATEMENT OF HON. DOUG CRACHY, COMMISSIONER, POWELL COUNTY,
                                MONTANA

        Mr. Crachy. Well, thank you Senator Daines for having this
    hearing at Grant-Kohrs, Deer Lodge, and Powell County. I will
    start by giving a little bit of history of the County. Powell
    County originated by being split off of Deer Lodge County in
    1901. The County seat of Powell County is Deer Lodge.
    Agriculture has been and still is the main economic business in
    Powell County. Mining was a major industry in the County until
    approximately 1990 when the last major mine, a phosphate mine,
    shut down eliminating many jobs.
        Another mine-related business, the smelter in Anaconda,
    employed many Powell County residents. Until the Milwaukee
    Railroad closed in 1980, a roundhouse was located in Deer Lodge
    and employed many good-paying positions. Approximately 49
    percent of Powell County is Federal Government-owned, the vast
    majority being the U.S. Forest Service, and minor percentages
    are BLM and Park Service. Logging in Powell County was a very
    active industry until the political and management climate
    curtailed almost all timber harvesting on federal land.
        Now the County must rely on SRS payments as a major funding
    source instead of logging as income from non-taxable federal
    land. One of the few sawmills left in the state is located in
    Deer Lodge, and it is still a major employer in the area, but
    the majority of the trees are not harvested in Powell County.
    Deer Lodge is midway between Glacier and Yellowstone off of
    Interstate 90, one of the main corridors between these major
    national parks. Powell County has many recreational activities
    that now attract people from both in and out of the State of
    Montana. Fishing is excellent on the Clark Fork, Blackfoot and
    Little Blackfoot rivers, Georgetown Lake, and many of the
    smaller streams and lakes in the County. Hunting is also very
    popular. Elk, deer, antelope, bear and predators are all able
    to be hunted locally.
        The northern portion of Powell County is in the Bob
    Marshall Wilderness, limiting economic activity to recreation.
    The Territorial Prison, constructed before Montana became a
    state, is located in Deer Lodge, and is a major tourist
    attraction for the area, along with the car museum and the
    hobby shop which sells inmate produced items. The Continental
    Divide Trail runs the length of the eastern boundary of Powell
    County. Powell County has acquired the old Milwaukee railroad
    bed between Deer Lodge and Garrison, a distance of
    approximately eight miles and also very instrumental to this
    Grant-Kohrs Ranch. But we are doing it as a future extension to
    the Arrowstone Park and Trail System within the City of Deer
    Lodge.
        Hiking and biking trails are becoming very popular as a
    tourist attraction. A 9-hole golf course is located just
    outside of town, and the Jack Nicklaus-designed Old Works Golf
    Course is just a few miles away in Anaconda. These activities
    are all draws that are available for tourists to enjoy along
    with visiting Grant-Kohrs Ranch. Powell County recently added a
    commercial kitchen to the Blue Ribbon Pavilion located on the
    Powell County Fairgrounds that has the capability of serving
    around 500 people.
        Obtaining functions at the pavilion also encourages
    attendees to also enjoy the other activities available such as
    hiking, golfing and Grant-Kohrs. The Deer Lodge City-Powell
    County Airport is in the process of being expanded with the
    assistance of the FAA. Advertising is important, as tourists
    must be aware of what is available and having the area
    presented as an interesting destination to get them to stop and
    enjoy the amenities. Social media and websites are popular and
    widely used.
        Many tourists planning to visit Montana obtain brochures
    from the State tourism office. Being included in these
    brochures is a benefit. Advertising in travel magazines and
    placing information at resorts, campgrounds, and RV parks is
    beneficial. The old standby of attractive billboards placed on
    the highways still brings attention to local attractions to
    traveling tourists, tempting them to stop.
        I thank you very much Senator for having me here to
    testify.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Crachy follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Daines. Thank you, Commissioner. Ms. Bannon.

       STATEMENT OF SARAH BANNON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOUTHWEST
                                MONTANA

        Ms. Bannon. I am Sarah Bannon, Executive Director of
    Southwest Montana. We are a contractor with the State for
    marketing the nine counties in Southwest, Montana. Senator
    Daines, I appreciate the opportunity to visit with you and to
    be a part of this hearing.
        Montana has over 2.3 million non-residents come to the
    state, and so that was the number for 2018. Eighty-four percent
    of these people plan to return to Montana within two years. Of
    the non-resident visitors surveyed who came to Powell County,
    70 percent of those people went to Yellowstone National Park,
    57 percent of those people went to Glacier National Park, and
    71 percent of the people coming to Powell County said they were
    looking for other historical sites. Now if we could get more of
    the national park travelers coming to the Grant-Kohrs Ranch and
    the Big Hole National Battlefield's national historic sites, it
    would take some of the pressure off the national parks'
    overflow and reduce the impact on the environment.
        So what are some of the ways that we drive Montana tourism?
    Of course, we have print advertising, billboards strategically
    placed, travel guide websites, social media, and our
    partnerships like with Deer Lodge, we do cooperative grants and
    community quarter grants, we do brochures. And regionally we
    have the travel guide, a tear-off map, a website, video for the
    website, a birding brochure, which our first feature on the
    birding brochure is Grant-Kohrs Ranch.
        So we would like to give more exposure right in the
    national parks, and they are so willing to bring people to the
    other parts in the State, and in our region, and into these
    national historic sites. So we need to get them the information
    to get them to funnel more people over to this wonderful site
    here.
        Jacque Lavelle, the Superintendent, super superintendent,
    she has created the largest event in Deer Lodge with Pumpkin
    Sunday. This event brings in 5,000 people into a slower
    shoulder season. She has excited the town to piggyback on the
    event and now they are doing their own Fall Festival along with
    the Pumpkin Sunday. She has all kinds of events, movies at the
    theater, birding, trail hikes and runs. Jacque is so willing to
    do anything she can to build interest in Grant-Kohrs Ranch, and
    she is doing a fabulous job at this.
        As you know, Southwest Montana considers this historic
    ranch a main attraction not only in Montana, but in the country
    as it is the way of life that is too often forgotten. School
    field trips are regular here to educate children on the actual
    history of the cattle industry and life on the frontier. Adults
    from all over are jolted into a glimpse of the past trials and
    tribulations forged in this way of life.
        Southwest Montana markets the Grant-Kohrs Ranch and the
    regional travel guide along with influencers where we bring
    writers in to come and write about their experiences here. We
    look forward to helping with more marketing exposure for the
    Grant-Kohrs Ranch historic site and continuing to work with
    Superintendent Jacque Lavelle.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Bannon follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Daines. Thank you, Ms. Bannon. Ms. O'Rourke.

      STATEMENT OF TOBY O'ROURKE, PRESIDENT & CEO, KAMPGROUNDS OF
                             AMERICA, INC.

        Ms. O'Rourke. Thank you, Senator, for having me, a KOA
    representative, at this hearing today. I appreciate the
    invitation to discuss this topic of expanding visitation in our
    parks, specifically to lesser-known parks, as it has a direct
    overlap to our business. My name is Toby O'Rourke. I am the
    President and CEO of Kampgrounds of America, or as you said,
    KOA. We are the world's largest network of privately owned
    campgrounds with nearly 520 locations across the United States
    and Canada. We were founded in 1962 in Billings and our
    headquarters remain there today.
        The majority of our campgrounds are franchises that are
    privately owned and operated, and they partner with us
    primarily for marketing and brand awareness, but also program
    supporting technology. We at KOA, Inc. also own 31 locations
    ourselves in various places across the country. Because of our
    large footprint, there is a KOA location near most every
    national park, memorial, monument or historical site. For
    example, here in Montana, not only do we have parks surrounding
    Glacier and Yellowstone, but we also have a campground at the
    Big Hole National Battlefield, the Little Bighorn Battlefield
    National Monument, and here in Deer Lodge near this location.
    Camping is increasingly growing in popularity.
        Based on our research report, the North American Campaign
    Report that we publish annually, we estimate there are 78
    million households who consider themselves active campers, and
    there has been roughly 7.2 million households that have been
    new to camping over the past five years. Thirty-nine million of
    those camp every year, and the number of annual campers has
    increased 22 percent over the past five years. Not only are
    more people camping, they are camping more frequently.
        Since 2014, we have seen a 72 percent growth in households
    taking three trips a year. I share these numbers because the
    growing population of campers represents a growing market for
    national park visitation. We find that most campers use our
    campgrounds as base camps for exploring the surrounding area.
    There are several trends worth noting that have an impact on my
    business that I believe would likewise affect the national
    parks. Understanding these trends would allow us to build
    effective marketing programs and could help build communication
    strategies for the parks, one of which is diversity.
        There has been significant increase in diversity in camping
    over the past five years. Our report shows that 29 percent of
    camping households are multicultural, and that is a 17-point
    increase since 2012. New campers are increasingly more diverse.
    In fact, last year, all new campers that camped for the first
    time, 51 percent of those were from minorities demographics.
    Key to attracting more diverse visitors is focusing on
    representing inclusion in not just marketing but also in
    operations and staffing.
        Secondly, millennials. Younger generations are driving the
    growth we see in camping. Millennials represent the largest
    segment of camping households at 41 percent. That is a 7-point
    increase. Among new campers, 56 percent were from millennial
    households. Millennials are a large focus of the travel market
    in general, because they are focused on experience, which is a
    nice target for the national park. I believe, being a marketer,
    that it is very difficult to market effectively to a whole
    generation so we like to segment it by life stage. And for us,
    focusing on the millennial family is a very good target that I
    think overlaps here. Road trips is a trend.
        KOA was built on the concept of road trips. Our founder
    recognized in 1962 people traveling to the Seattle World's Fair
    and developed a business off of that. What we are seeing now in
    research that we follow is that road trips have been trending.
    The portrait of American traveler research shows that the
    percentage of American travelers taking road trips has
    increased by 64 percent, and more than two-thirds plan to do
    one in the next year.
        Close to home, on the other hand, we see one of the most
    interesting trends in our data is that people are camping
    closer and closer to home. Seventy percent of campers camp
    within 150 miles of home, and that has increased 15 points in
    five years. Our take on this is that people are increasingly
    busy in time, and while we do market our national destinations
    such as the national parks, it is very important to reach out
    to your local area and let people know what they can go
    explore. We at KOA have a shared interest with you in
    increasing visitation to all of the national parks, monuments
    and historical sites in the system. Not only are we passionate
    about the benefits of the outdoor experience that are found at
    these locations, but the livelihood of our small business and
    entrepreneurs that surround these points of interest depend on
    it.
        I believe camping households are a prime target for the
    park system, and we look forward to doing our part to help
    increase the collective awareness of our national wonders.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. O'Rourke follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Daines. Well, that was impressive. You all stayed
    right within the time limits too. That is great.
        Let's start with Mr. Jenkins. As you are aware, the
    Centennial set records, you mentioned that in your testimony,
    in terms of visitation at a number of parks across the country,
    including places in Montana like Yellowstone and Glacier. I
    know you track those numbers. As we seek to increase visitation
    of parks that are currently less well-known, like Grant-Kohrs
    or Little Bighorn Battlefield, we need to ensure these sites
    have the capacity to meet the needs of increased visitation.
        We talked a little bit about that in your testimony,
    reflected across the witnesses here, about the Every Kid
    Outdoors and the Find Your Park initiative, which are
    wonderful. What we need to do here is get more young people
    outside. Could you explain how the Park Service forecasts
    visitation in individual park units? How do you prioritize
    staffing decisions, especially when you have the seasonality
    challenges with staffing units, while at the same time dealing
    with increasing visitation?
        Mr. Jenkins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not aware that
    we actually, across the country, forecast increases in
    visitation. Rather, what we do is we rely upon the
    superintendents of the staff in their parks, given their local
    knowledge and the work that they do with their partners, to be
    paying attention to the trends and looking into the future in
    terms of what might be coming our way. Are there special events
    coming? Commemorations, anniversaries, as well as also larger
    trends. You are correct in terms of staffing is a really
    interesting calculus for superintendents and their leadership
    teams as they are trying to figure out how to manage within
    fixed budgets and optimize when they need to have staff on in
    order to be able to meet the visitation curve, if you will.
        And increasingly what we are seeing is that those
    visitation curves are both higher and pushing at--so earlier
    into the spring and later into the fall in terms of parks
    wanting to have programs to be able to support people coming.
    And then also, many superintendent parks are working closely
    with local communities, with school districts and educators, to
    run programs that are counter seasonal. So when the school year
    is going on, to be able to host kids like they do here at
    Grant-Kohrs, to be able to come and be able to learn about the
    park.
        Senator Daines. What about some of these larger bus tours
    that we will see? We see those more typically in some of the
    larger national parks. How would the National Park Service
    coordinate with these tour groups? Think about their
    itineraries. I mean this is a hidden gem here. And I think
    about how increasingly there is a desire for the genuineness of
    a travel experience. You know, to be off the beaten path and
    social media can drive some of that as well.
        We were chatting a little bit at the Big Bend National Park
    where the Find Your Park hashtag just drove tremendous traffic
    to a place you have to hike miles to even get to the park. How
    does the National Park Service work on these itineraries with
    some of these larger tour groups, and how might you highlight a
    place like Grant-Kohrs?
        Mr. Jenkins. Sir, with your permission, let me give part of
    the answer, and then I will turn it over to Jacque to let her
    talk about some of the things that we are doing here. So at a
    national level, we have a tourism office that works with the
    tourism industry and that participates in things like the
    international powwow and other trade shows where they get
    together with the trade industry too. And a specific thing that
    they do with that time is to try to highlight opportunities in
    terms of lesser-known parks.
        I think also what we realize is that when people are on bus
    tours and they are visiting Yellowstone, or Glacier, or Rocky
    Mountain, they are usually coming from large metropolitan areas
    and going by places. And so it is, if you will, filling in the
    hole, filling in the places on the on the journey. I like your
    recognition of people who are looking for authenticity and
    being able to go and visit those. And then, again, we rely on
    local knowledge and local partnerships. By way of example, when
    I worked at Lewis and Clark National Park in Astoria, Oregon,
    we would coordinate with the commercial tour industry, where we
    would meet with them early in the season and we would provide
    training for their onboard guides. And then we would work with
    them to try to make sure that the tour buses all did not show
    up at 11 o'clock. And where we would have, you know, long lines
    for the bathroom or trying to see, you know, rather we would
    work with them to try to set up a schedule so that the buses
    would arrive at intervals so that both we could handle them
    within our capacity but they were also ensuring the quality
    experience. Let's hear from Jacque.
        Ms. Lavelle. Several years ago, we had a success story,
    which fits right into your question Senator. A tour bus
    operator who brings tourists from Australia and they do an
    extended tour through Glacier National Park, visiting Montana,
    and going down to Yellowstone, stopped by to visit, just to see
    Grant-Kohrs Ranch. And after finding what a gem this was, they
    now regularly schedule their tour bus routes coming through
    here. They contact us before their buses come through. They
    stop in Deer Lodge, and this is basically the restroom stop.
    They let the buses, sometimes two, three buses at a time,
    unload here in Deer Lodge.
        And not only do they visit Grant-Kohrs Ranch, they go down
    Main Street, they go to the Brew Pub, they have pizza at the
    pizza place, and it actually is a wonderful opportunity and we
    find that the other Australian tourists love American ranching
    history. So it's a perfect marriage just by having that one
    visit of the tour bus company recognizing, oh, there's a brown
    sign, it's a national park, and I'm getting the same experience
    here that I would get at Yellowstone or Glacier.
        Senator Daines. Of course those Aussies, that is the land
    of Man from Snowy River, right?
        [Laughter.]
        But I think about some of our visitors that are coming from
    overseas, perhaps a little North of Australia, and how that
    Montana cowboy mystique that everybody knows about seems like
    would just be a tremendous attraction for here, an experience I
    believe goes so well with our heritage here in Montana.
        I wanted to go over here to Commissioner Crachy. Thanks for
    your testimony, again, and kind of letting out the perspective
    here on the economics and as a Commissioner, the challenges you
    face of making everything balanced and providing services for
    the County Government.
        According to Park Service, visitors to the parks in the
    State of Montana spent $633 million in our local gateway
    communities last year, and Grant-Kohrs identified about $1.6
    million for this park. Could you elaborate on the importance of
    that number to Powell County and what it might mean if we were
    to continue growing that number year over year?
        Mr. Crachy. Thank you, Senator. All the tourists that come
    in, if they stop, you know, like Jacque mentioned, with the
    buses coming in and going down Main Street, and any of the
    tourists that visit or spend any money at any of the local
    businesses, obviously wind up helping both the city and the
    county by creating jobs, by employment, and you can see that by
    looking at the town. We have a brewery that has opened in just
    the last couple of years, you know, they seem to be doing well.
        If you look out by the interstate where we have a
    McDonald's, the new hospital, you know, the I-90 convenience
    store, the one across the street, there is an Indian Creek
    Campground right there. You know, there has been some expansion
    going on in that area. And not that this is all related to
    tourism, but tourism does have a major impact on the city and
    the county. And the more tourists we can get in, or even people
    just to come off the interstate and fill up a car with gas and
    spend money is going to help the overall general economy.
        Senator Daines. I am going to go over to, again, a question
    for Mr. Jenkins. I mentioned earlier in my opening remarks
    about the deferred maintenance challenge we face across our
    national parks. We have got the spreadsheet for it here at
    Grant-Kohrs. That number is about $5.4 million, and I think for
    the sake of those who may not be in the weeds of what we look
    at on deferred maintenance, this can be not just the things you
    see on the storefront when you walk around, how beautiful it
    is, but sometimes it is the lesser-known parts, employee
    housing, water and sewer systems that are absolutely essential
    to allow these parks to continue. So it is about $5.4 million
    here in deferred maintenance. That is not as large as some of
    the parks in Montana. I am working with Cam Sholly and Jeff
    Mow, and Jacque you are now my next best friend.
    Superintendents here at parks love you. This is great. It is
    still a significant number, $5.4 million a year. How does that
    total impact the visitors' experience here of the site by you
    not addressing the issue of deferred maintenance?
        Mr. Jenkins. Again, let me answer part of this question and
    have Jacque speak specifically. So exactly as you mentioned, it
    is a little over $5 million here in deferred maintenance for
    Grant-Kohrs, $586 million for Yellowstone, that Cam is dealing
    with there. In between, for Glacier it is $325 million, I
    believe is the total across the State, or Yellowstone was kind
    of counting a large part of Wyoming. And that maintenance
    backlog is critical because, as you said, it is everything from
    the things that you don't see, water and wastewater, and
    electrical systems. So relating it to your home, it would be
    like your septic system, or connection to the sewer, or your
    well, to the employee housing and the roads to trails.
        About half of all the deferred maintenance is in roads, the
    way that people want to be able to access the park, whether
    that is Yellowstone or Grant-Kohrs. And so making progress on
    addressing the deferred maintenance is fundamental to meeting
    our mission for providing a high-quality visitor experience,
    everything, you know, being able to drive, hike, get
    information to the visitor center, spend the night in a
    campground or a lodge, and all of the other support structures.
    But let's learn a little bit about what the story is here.
        Ms. Lavelle. So the deferred maintenance story here, as
    Chip mentioned, about half of it is roads, which for us means
    the access that we use to get to our cultural landscape and our
    fields, taking care of our fields, which actually double as
    hiking trails, hiking trails that tie into the County's hiking
    trail. So being able to maintain those and keep those in good
    condition is of paramount importance.
        The other aspect of the deferred maintenance is the fact
    that this is a historic site so every time you do maintenance
    on a historic structure, you have to follow the Secretary of
    the Interior's standards. It is not as inexpensive as it would
    be if it was modern buildings. We have to use historic
    techniques, so it is always more expensive. So whenever you are
    thinking about maintenance for a building like this, you are
    thinking about using the traditional methods, you are thinking
    about using whitewash in the traditional recipes. So it is more
    expensive, and it actually makes the visitor experience more
    realistic and more authentic.
        Senator Daines. Great. Thank you, and I could not agree
    more. You know, part of the good news that you hear a lot about
    the polarization divides in Washington, DC, and I think if more
    Americans saw some of the good work going on between Democrats
    and Republicans working together here on the deferred
    maintenance so they can move everybody's hearts like we need to
    produce an outcome here. But there is a lot of the genuine
    bipartisan support to address this very important issue. So
    before we can stay in Grant-Kohrs with you, Superintendent, I
    hope that we will see a bill moving through here pretty soon,
    so keep pushing on it.
        Ms. Bannon, thank you for being here as well today. You
    know as well as anyone that tourism is a pillar of our economy
    here in Montana. Outdoor recreation, by some estimates, suggest
    it is a $7 billion economic driver here in Montana. One of our
    biggest draws, of course, is our unmatched scenery, and it was
    earlier here today when Michelle and I were doing our brief
    before the hearing, we were out there outside the barn where
    the draft horses are--what a change of scenery from the swamp
    back in DC.
        [Laughter.]
        Just a beautiful landscape there. What is often left out of
    this story though is that the smaller and the lesser-known
    parks, the small businesses, the rich history, draws visitors
    from all around the world as well. I think about our parks in
    our country as being kind of the ``Department of First
    Impressions'' oftentimes for international visitors who come to
    the United States, and their first experience will be in one of
    our parks.
        This gets back into the importance of the deferred
    maintenance to make sure everybody's experience here, that
    first impression, is a positive one. Your expertise is in the
    Southwest region here. Could you give me an idea of how the
    sites like Grant-Kohrs, how they draw visitors into towns like
    Deer Lodge, and what importance does that play in the larger
    Montana tourism economy?
        Ms. Bannon. Well Grant-Kohrs offers a culture that you
    cannot find in most national parks at all, and it is a way of
    life that most people are not exposed to. So that in itself is
    a draw. And then when we have international people coming, they
    find that authentic heritage is a big draw. And so all of this
    brings in people from not only all over the states but
    international tourists, and they are experiences that use their
    money as they pass through, as you heard, in the restaurants,
    and in our other attractions.
        They also go back with word of mouth. That is really huge
    for bringing more people in and quite often they will say, we
    found this little gem hidden in the corner of Montana. So we
    find that word of mouth is huge in spreading the word and
    consequently bringing in more economic development here.
        Senator Daines. In today's society with these [holds up
    smartphone], word of mouth oftentimes I think is social media,
    and I think we have seen examples with the Find Your Park
    initiative, the #everykidoutdoors. I would like to just maybe
    open this up to any of the witnesses here, Ms. Bannon, thinking
    about how might we use social media to promote a site like
    Grant-Kohrs?
        Ms. Bannon. On our social media, they have events that
    people are excited about. They like to post their pictures.
    Pumpkin Sunday, they want to post pictures of all the fun
    they're having here. Roping, the little wooden cow over there.
    So right away people are already excited and want to post on
    that. We have things going up on YouTube that will capture some
    of this. We have the branding that is exciting--some of us have
    a hard time with it; we know it's part of culture.
        [Laughter.]
        But all of that is so educational and so mind-boggling to
    some people that go get a hamburger at McDonalds. They don't
    see the back side of things. So all of that with social media
    will help, and along with Facebook and Twitter, Instagram, the
    photos going up on Snapchat. So it's out there, and we just
    need to keep that on the forefront, I think.
        Senator Daines. Ms. O'Rourke? You probably have a thought
    on that, I am guessing.
        Ms. O'Rourke. I do. Social media and digital marketing are
    very foundational to have a market at KOA. A couple suggestions
    I would have, one plays into influencers strategy. So it is one
    thing to have a Facebook presence or Instagram, you know blast
    out yourself, but it is more impactful to engage people on
    these national parks, invite these people that have audiences
    of their own.
        So if you just hope for it to organically happen, there is
    some of that and there are some success stories, but we are
    very thoughtful about our engagement with specific influencers,
    whether that be someone that is starting a family, you know, a
    mom in our blogger target, or something to do with diversity
    stays, for example, that we get them onto our campgrounds to
    experience that and they are sharing it to a much wider
    audience.
        The other thing I would add with social media is that
    Facebook, Instagram in particular, are so sophisticated in the
    way you can target, so we can get our message, we can be very
    specific about which zip codes we want to hit, which interests
    these people have based on what they post on, other pages that
    they like, and so you can have a very sophisticated strategy of
    advertising within social media. It is not just about posting,
    it is about your digital marketing strategy to get, you know,
    they look like organic posts, but they are essentially ads, in
    front of people. So you could be targeting the region, you
    could be targeting certain areas of the country, about specific
    locations to attract that awareness.
        Senator Daines. Go ahead and keep the microphone. I will
    try to project, you can keep the mic. So these influencers you
    are talking about, are for the benefit of those who may not be
    in that world watching that, where you have Instagram sites
    that are primarily having a travel experience. That is all they
    do. They travel and they post their experiences, people follow
    that, and they want to mimic that experience they have. It is
    particularly targeted to millennials, which is a big part of
    demographics as we are thinking about where we could target.
    Could you talk a little more about who might--specifically talk
    about this park, what influencers do you look at? Are there
    some particular influencers you might think about--you don't
    have to give me specifics--you probably have some ideas in
    mind. What partnerships--thinking about with Southwest Montana,
    with development, with our commissioners, with the park here?
    We might want to bring them here to post on Instagram,
    Facebook, and that has ignited some significant shift in park
    visitation in other places around this country. I mean,
    remarkable results. Just think more about how we might do that
    because it is a fairly cost-effective way to market.
        Ms. O'Rourke. Yes, it is very cost-effective. So there was
    a lot of talk earlier about word-of-mouth marketing?
        Senator Daines. Yes.
        Ms. O'Rourke. Really, it is about word of ``mouse''
    marketing in today's world----
        [Laughter.]
        And so people, and there are a lot of stats around it, how
    they are influenced to travel is based on what they see friends
    and family posting. They have been more so influenced by people
    they trust online. So that you know, retail companies use this
    all the time, they send their clothes to fashion bloggers that
    post images of them in these outfits, they cultivate these
    communities of people that follow and trust their advice, and
    then they order that product.
        So it is similar in travel. It is a really big deal, and I
    think we can take more advantage of that within the park
    system. So a place like this, you know, if you were asking for
    my suggestions, top of mind, I would definitely play into the
    family target. And I talked about I think the millennial family
    is very important. Millennial parents are very interested in
    educating their children. They want to provide them unique
    experiences. They want to get them outdoors.
        And so if you can create environments where you are
    bringing some of the social media influencers that have
    audiences of families, you know, mothers that are watching them
    of young children and you are bringing them here with their
    children, they are getting that educational experience. They
    are seeing all of the unique things that Grant-Kohrs has to
    offer. They are going to write stories about that on their
    blogs. They are going to post pictures of that on Instagram.
        And these people have hundreds of thousands of followers,
    and then they bookmark that, and that becomes one of their
    bucket lists. And we do this every day, and I think it is how
    you can get very targeted for very, very little money and
    investment.
        Senator Daines. Right. So you have a facility here you
    mentioned, right?
        Ms. O'Rourke. We do.
        Senator Daines. As you think about, if you were going to
    market for the Grant-Kohrs KOA Campground here, are there some
    influencers that come to mind as you think about that, both
    domestic and perhaps even internationally? And then how we
    might, in building strategy here, make that stop, Yellowstone
    and Glacier would be anchor locations, we could use that to our
    advantage, figure out ways of making that trek?
        We want to make sure they spend not just a bathroom break
    here, but I would get them here, into town, and have an
    experience here where this becomes a high-priority part of the
    travel experience and not just a place to take a stretch point?
        Ms. O'Rourke. Right. And the other, you know, trend is
    FOMO, the fear of missing out. So if they feel like something
    is happening here, that they came all this way to Montana and
    Wyoming, and then they drove right by it and they are missing
    out, and your messaging can be structured around that. And this
    could be very targeted in advertising through geo-targeting so
    you can hit somebody when they are in view, and they are
    seeing--you know, everyone is on their phone. I just got off a
    road trip with my family, and I sat on my phone half the time
    while my husband was driving and I was getting ads for things
    happening in Colorado as we were driving through Colorado.
        You make people think with those ads that they are missing
    out on real, true, authentic Western experience, you know, just
    a stop down the road. So if I'm marketing, to your question,
    the KOA here, I am promoting--I am drawing that camper base
    here because there are all these things to do in the area. So
    we find people choose campground locations based on location.
    So you have to sell them what there is to do here, and a lot of
    ways to do that is not just show it but to really show it
    authentically.
        And people, you know, not just a billboard, and billboards
    are very important, but really show what is happening behind
    that whether you are doing it online, on the billboard, or in a
    magazine ad, that feeling that they are missing out on
    something and they have to stop.
        Senator Daines. Okay. Are there comments, thoughts? Jacque,
    you want to follow up on that too? Sure.
        Ms. Lavelle. Yes, I would agree. And I love the FOMO. I
    think that is absolutely accurate. The other thing which
    happens a lot at Deer Lodge, Facebook is definitely a media
    that is heavily used for people to communicate about events,
    and I noticed we will post something on our Facebook page and
    then the Deer Lodge classifieds will post it on their page, and
    then the Chamber of Commerce will post it on their page. So
    sometimes that reposting actually builds that FOMO excitement
    of, why are all these people talking about this event? I did
    see the announcement for this hearing posted several times
    yesterday on our Facebook page and Facebook for Deer Lodge
    classifieds.
        Mr. Jenkins. The National Park Service has social media
    accounts that are both handling nationally as well as also
    locally. And nationally, our DC office works to highlight
    lesser-visited parks, but perhaps more directly to your
    question is what we also have is some of the larger parks are
    actually stepping up to market the less-visited parks. Grand
    Teton actually has Wyoming Wednesday, where every Wednesday
    they use their social media to be able to highlight places
    around the State of Wyoming to inform people.
        So I think it is--we also have many parks, just as Jacque
    was saying, working to get expertise such as what Toby, you
    know, talks about to be able to try to develop a social media
    marketing plan and be able to identify what is appropriate for
    the National Park Service to do, what is appropriate for
    private businesses to do, but how you can go about coordinating
    your social media activities so that you are amplifying it in a
    strategic way.
        Senator Daines. So Jacque, you need to go talk to Jeff Mow
    and have Montana Monday, how is that?
        [Laughter.]
        Ms. Lavelle. Great idea.
        Senator Daines. So Cam Sholly is the Superintendent of
    Yellowstone National Park and Jeff Mow of Glacier National
    Park, for those who may not know those names.
        A question about cost and return on investment. As some of
    you know, I spent most of my career in the private sector, so
    politics is still a new thing for me, and marketing was always
    such an important part of any business. If you are not selling,
    you are not moving your business forward and keeping the lights
    on. Think about the relative costs whereas you think about
    marketing budgets, it is always tight budgets, there is never a
    lot of excess dollars floating around in this world. What do
    you think would be the most effective use of marketing, and
    that may mean to back up a social media site, in terms of the
    greater return on investment for marketing spent?
        Ms. O'Rourke. We are very data-driven in my business, so we
    track everything. We transitioned most of our money out of TV
    into digital. We can return $22 per dollar spent on a digital
    ad and that is not necessarily, that can exist within social
    media, but that could be, you know, standard billboard ads that
    you may see while you are navigating the site, or search
    advertising is probably the most efficient and effective way we
    can market our business and you have to be top of the pole, you
    have to be the first one or two. And sometimes we see upwards
    of $27 of return based on an investment in that area----
        Senator Daines. For a dollar?
        Ms. O'Rourke. For a dollar. And so as you are--it is very,
    you know, based on keywords. You have to be in front of what
    you think people are searching, and I think there is a big
    opportunity to market places like this and others across the
    country if you are focused on road trips, and you know people
    are looking at Yellowstone, so you buy Yellowstone keywords to
    promote Grant-Kohrs. They are already going to Yellowstone, so
    they are searching all these things to do in Yellowstone, but
    you are serving them ads and they are like, oh, yeah, we are
    going to drive right by there. And that, we find, our most
    return comes from digital ads.
        Ms. Bannon. I find that it is really hard to measure the
    other side of advertising. Digital is cost-effective, but you
    also find that you have a lot of people that like to read while
    they are in the car. So I find it is nice to have both the
    digital and brochures saying come in to Grant-Kohrs because it
    is not necessarily on their radar. If they are going through
    say Yellowstone, but they see the brochure, they say, oh, yes,
    let's keep this on our radar and that is passed through on
    that. So I think you need a variety of ways of marketing your
    attractions.
        Mr. Jenkins. And just to build on how to give credit to
    Jeff up in Glacier is that, you know, many national parks have
    a park newspaper. Well Glacier dedicates a page in their park
    newspaper to Grant-Kohrs, so people visiting there, when they
    come through the entrance gate, they get something they can
    read in the car about Grant-Kohrs.
        Senator Daines. That is great. How about Cam?
        Mr. Jenkins. Well, we will have a conversation.
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Daines. Cam is a dear friend. I was going to try to
    get a few days out there to spend some time together off the
    beaten path in Yellowstone this summer, but it is not working
    out that much, maybe next year. Thank you for that discussion
    and that thought. Spending time here, and you think about the
    off-the-beaten-path, and again that word authentic was used,
    the genuineness of this experience and the lack of crowds and
    so forth, and so many things people are yearning for. They come
    to Montana to get away from the traffic, away from the urban
    kind of environment, and I think you have got something very,
    very special here.
        I have a question back for Ms. O'Rourke. KOA, like the
    National Park Service, manages a lot of individual units across
    the U.S. You are in Alaska, Maine, as well as in Canada and, of
    course, your campground here in Deer Lodge. Just like the Park
    Service, or really any business with a retail presence, some
    sites are just getting more popular than others. What does KOA,
    or if you are able to share, how do you identify new sites for
    your portfolio as you look at a potential visitation stream?
    Approximate national park unit is something you might look at
    as you think about expansion.
        Ms. O'Rourke. Thank you. Yes, as I said, we have 520
    locations across the country. Each of our franchised
    properties, which is the majority of that, is guaranteed of
    territory. So in some ways that can restrict our ability to
    oversaturate one particular area. For example, the Yellowstone
    parks we were talking about earlier and Glacier or any national
    park campgrounds are very, very busy and popular because there
    are people traveling to those parks so naturally they are
    camping outside the parks. Our strategy is to put as many KOAs
    around those parks as possible, and a lot of our owners are
    adding additional locations because it is within their
    territory. We cannot just add another one. They are guaranteed
    a certain territory.
        But other ways we look to expand, you know, our business
    grew up on highways and byways, the interstate system. We
    actually have three types of campgrounds that were segmented:
    the resort destinations; holiday locations, which are base
    camps to explore; and journey parks, and journey parks are all
    about convenience for that traveler. So we do have some
    campgrounds that are more popular based on their location, but
    each of our campgrounds serve some sort of purpose. It could be
    aiding that traveler. And so if I'm equating that to the park
    system, every park has, you know, there are certain crown
    jewels and there is another part that maybe serves a different
    purpose. They are all meeting that need of someone exploring
    our heritage and they can be promoted, just like that road
    trip, again going back to that.
        So just as a journey campground serving someone traveling,
    so could this campground be a great step for an afternoon while
    they are going to make it to their ultimate destination in
    Glacier and make their stay in the campgrounds there. So I
    don't know if that answers your question, but absolutely it is
    driven by tourism markets, it is driven by national parks,
    urban centers. We have campgrounds outside of major cities as
    there's people looking to get outside the city, and that is our
    expansion strategy.
        Senator Daines. Mr. Jenkins, you are the Director of the
    entire Intermountain Region. You serve under the National Park
    Service. Thank you for your service. Could you share some of
    the success stories that might come to mind where you have seen
    maybe smaller parks where they have been able to drive some
    increase in visitation, increase in visibility, and perhaps
    there are parks within your territory, or stories you have
    heard about other parks around the country that once were kind
    of off-the-beaten-path and now are increasing their numbers?
        Mr. Jenkins. Sure. First, what I would say is, kind of,
    every place where there is an example of successfully marketing
    the opportunity with a lesser-known park pretty much is
    universally as a result of a partnership or partnerships, work
    collaboration with local communities, collaboration with local
    businesses, collaboration with state organizations. It is not
    something that we can do alone, and part of it is, is
    leveraging resources to be able to do that.
        I think a nice example that is going on is actually the Big
    Hole National Battlefield where the park is continuing to grow
    the relationship with the Nez Perce tribe. Many, many people
    both from the United States and from around the world are
    fascinated about tribal history and culture, and the working
    relationship of Big Hole and also the other Nez Perce sites
    where the tribe is willing to come in and do cultural
    demonstrations, where they are able to do drumming and singing,
    language programs. Again, it goes to that authenticity. It is
    the real thing and it is done by the people who, you know, it
    is their heritage, telling their story. I think that that is
    part of what is attractive here at Grant-Kohrs. It is the real
    heritage.
        In addition, we are also working with local businesses
    about how they can play a role with commercial tours and tying
    in with other local businesses in terms of being able to have
    crafts that are also being sold. So that is one example. I
    think a different place, and a little bit of a different angle,
    is a Little Bighorn, where we are seeing a change in
    visitation. We are seeing people showing up with larger
    vehicles, particularly trailers, and within the existing
    footprint that we have, you know, just being able to be a
    welcoming place as part of our deferred maintenance, we need to
    modernize the parking lot so that we can reconfigure within the
    existing footprint, so that we can accommodate people being
    able to come with the projected way that they are going to be
    visiting there. And so working with funding that comes from
    Congress in order to be able to make the infrastructure changes
    that we are making at those parks.
        Senator Daines. Yes. When you think about it, our history
    in this country is still relatively new compared to a lot of
    the world. You used that Nez Perce example, or the cowboy
    experience here, it is not that far removed. In fact, I had
    dinner with an 83-year-old rancher in Carbon County early this
    week, and he was talking about his grandfather and it was just
    direct memories of when he came to Montana pre-statehood. And
    you think about, that was his grandpa and he still has
    firsthand memories of that. And we have a chance to preserve
    that, right, and to share that.
        I wanted to talk too about the veteran population, one of
    targeted groups we can have in terms of driving tourism. Last
    year there was a bill that I sponsored called the Every Kid
    Outdoors Act, talking about the importance there in the
    demographic of millennials and so forth, getting kids out of
    the house into our national parks. I should say the students
    not kids. I am a father--having a slip there. I was happy to
    see that that was signed into law by the President as part of
    this Lands package we passed earlier this year. A historic
    Lands package.
        This year, we are working on increasing veterans' access to
    our parks. It is a bill and it is called Accelerating Veterans
    Recovery Outdoors Act, and here in Montana we have a lot of
    Wounded Warrior programs bringing veterans here who have
    suffered injuries in the battlefield and come out here, we take
    them fly fishing, we take them hunting. There are a lot of
    great stories of where they have experienced the Montana way of
    life. This bill will not only help get veterans into our parks,
    but also help, again, with their recovery and treatment from
    some of their injuries.
        Mr. Jenkins, could you talk a bit about the parks that give
    passes to veterans and students to expand visitation? You
    shared a little bit earlier about Every Kid Outdoors, and
    particularly how it applies to our less-visited parks?
        Mr. Jenkins. Sure. First of all, thank you for the support
    of the Every Kid Outdoors Act. I mean that has been--in the
    Every Kid in a Park program, in the first four years of
    existence, there were over 600,000 fourth graders that
    participated in that program. That is a remarkable success, and
    the fact that that program was authorized to continue into the
    future gives us and the BLM, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and
    the Forest Service, a very powerful tool to work with our
    partners for that. Programs like that are important both for
    the passes and also incentivizing nonprofit organizations, like
    the National Park Foundation and others, to provide grants to
    work with educators and schools so that we bring fourth graders
    to parks. And then as a part of their school visit, they get an
    Every Kid Outdoors pass.
        So we are leveraging a lot of different resources in order
    to be able to do that. Hopefully, the kid, the student, goes
    back from there, from their fourth grade class trip, takes
    their pass home, and that incentivizes the whole family then to
    be able to come and visit the park or multiple parks. In terms
    of working with our military, both active and veterans, it is--
    one of the angles, as Toby pointed out, you know, part of it is
    working in the diversity space and one of the most diverse
    organizations in this country is the military.
        And so there, actually the Park Service has been viewing
    that as kind of double duty, both honoring the service of
    working with those who are active duty and veterans, but it is
    also an enormous opportunity for us to be able to connect with
    diverse audiences and diverse organizations. And we work with a
    variety of different partner organizations to host veterans to
    be able to come in a variety of different ways, and we are
    experimenting and piloting different programs, particularly
    around helping veterans heal and move to post-military service
    careers.
        For example, I would use my day job. I am Superintendent at
    Mount Rainier National Park. We work with an organization
    called Mission Continues, where for the last several years the
    Mission Continues leadership comes to Mount Rainier and they
    spend four or five days doing a combination of service projects
    where they are working together and doing team building, and
    then around the campfire and over evenings, they are doing
    strategic planning for the organization about how they can
    bring other vets to be able to be engaged.
        Senator Daines. Well, thanks. I think we cannot
    underestimate the power of that experience. We had a young
    Green Beret from Montana that was nearly killed in action in
    March in Afghanistan. I visited him in Walter Reed. He is from
    Northwest Montana and I will keep it anonymous here because he
    is in Special Ops, but then he could not walk again. He got out
    of Walter Reed, and as they were pushing the wheelchair around
    the Capitol Hill earlier this year, so you can see it, then
    fast-forward to Fort Carson a couple weeks ago shooting on
    their long-range thousand meter targets. Guess who showed up to
    shoot with me? This young Green Beret from Montana. And as part
    of the healing process, we said we would elk hunt here this
    fall, and he was so excited. And the day when we lost one of
    our key Green Berets on July 13th, a 40-year-old gentleman with
    three children tragically killed who was a mentor to all these
    Green Berets, and on that really dark day, that text I sent
    him, would you like to go elk hunting in Montana? And now they
    are going to come, and of course we will work on the project.
    Anyway, it is a little of that important part, I guess. Just
    one more story to add.
        Well, we are going to move toward our conclusion here.
    Before we close, I would like to ask one more question to each
    of you, and we have discussed a lot of different thoughts,
    thrown some ideas out there about ways to perhaps cost-
    effectively improve traffic and visibility here to a place like
    Grant-Kohrs. Here is the question. If you were to leave one
    suggestion for Congress, for the Administration--I am sorry, it
    can only be one----
        [Laughter.]
        We are just interested in Montana in general, what would
    you want to see done that might help improve visitation at a
    site like Grant-Kohrs, and anything you would like to see done
    specifically? And we are going to open up to whoever wants to
    go first, and Jacque you get to have a word on this as well,
    okay, as the honorary fifth member of the panel. So if anybody
    wants to start that out, let me know.
        Ms. Bannon. Well, I like the idea that we will continue our
    marketing and really focusing on this national historic site. I
    would like to find a way to get more, and this goes against the
    new way, but the traditional, I would like to have some
    brochures. We have brochure exchanges. We have our Glacier Park
    National Park. I feel if we can get Grant-Kohrs Ranch in there,
    this is right in-between, it is right on the trail. It is in
    their hands. I think if we can get more brochures, we will get
    them out to all our area and our neighboring areas. So I would
    like to be able to do that.
        Mr. Crachy. Thank you, and I would like to kind of play on
    that too. I am old-fashioned, you might say. I don't have a
    cellphone--I don't have a smartphone.
        [Laughter.]
        I don't have cell service at my house, so I don't have a
    smartphone. I do have a flip phone. Brochures are great. I
    learned a lot about what social media has to do. I am not on
    Facebook and all that, but I did learn a lot from Ms. O'Rourke
    about how good of an advertising factor that is. I want to make
    sure that we, as a county, we are in cooperation with the city
    and the Chamber of Commerce. We do have an individual that is
    hired jointly that we all have that is just for that purpose of
    trying to bring anything of importance, or bring tourism in or
    anything, into the county in general, and also with the city
    and the Chamber.
        But we are not only looking at Deer Lodge, we are also
    looking at our little rural communities like Vandal, Helmville,
    smaller ones. If they have anything that they are doing, trying
    to get it out and advertise through this individual. I know she
    uses social media. Thank you very much for having me.
        Senator Daines. Thanks, Commissioner. Ms. O'Rourke.
        Ms. O'Rourke. Thank you. So the first one is that I would
    offer brand partnerships representing private industry here. We
    get, you know, discussions a lot with the Interior Department
    about private investment in parks or centers, but let's extend
    that discussion to something Chip talked about, maybe think
    about ways that we could better partner together for purposes
    of marketing because that drives my business and drives
    visitations to each of these individual locations.
        And before the hearing he had shared that the park system
    can't actually buy ads. So the discussion we had, I did not
    know, and I do know now that you can't actually invest money
    into those digital ads, but I can, and I can do that to the
    benefit of both of us. So I think that there is something to be
    explored there. But the thing I wanted to talk about again, we
    talked about children and we talked about veterans and I
    touched briefly in my statement about minorities. I think that
    that is a huge area of opportunity nationally for targeting and
    be more inclusive and focusing on bringing minority
    demographics to the outdoors, into our national parks, whether
    it is the large parks or the small parks.
        And there is a lot of work to do and with my own business
    we are tackling this as well. We are having an inclusion in
    camping summit at the Presidio, another national park, in
    September where we are bringing together leaders in our
    campground organizations to have discussions specifically about
    inclusion because we are learning, while the numbers are
    showing their steady progress, there is so much work to do.
    There were studies done several years ago out of Wyoming that
    showed that, for example, the study was an African-American
    demographic that said they did not feel welcomed in the
    national parks. Other things coming out of that research was
    showing that among Hispanic or African-American, they did not
    even know about the national parks. And so that is something we
    work on in our business and I think that can be elevated. That
    plays into the being inclusive in your marketing, that plays
    into working specific outreach programs with these influencers.
        That is how we are starting right now that I talked about
    earlier. There are a lot of activists groups that have been
    formed across the board. It is not just people of color
    communities. It is also LGBTQ and handicap and women as well.
    So I think there is a lot of work that can be done there and it
    is not just marketing to market, it is true, authentic
    engagement. And that is where we are shifting as a brand and I
    think the Park Service could do that as well because then it
    seems more welcoming and more real.
        And then the third part to that is also representation in
    park rangers and in staff. So on my side, I want to look at how
    I can increase numbers of franchisees from people of color
    communities and other underrepresented groups, and I think some
    national parks have made efforts and inroads to increase
    diversity, not just among color but also with women and I think
    that that is important to continue, because when that is played
    back to the visitor, they feel welcomed there and that helps
    increase visitation.
        So I think that is a huge initiative that the outdoors
    needs to embrace across the board, and it is private industry
    as well as public.
        Mr. Jenkins. You can have the last word. Senator, thank you
    for your work on focusing on the different maintenance backlog
    and that is what I would say is that it is continuing the
    effort. Making progress on deferred maintenance is fundamental
    to world-class visitor experience, and we want people to have a
    world-class experience from Glacier to Grant-Kohrs. And
    Congress' continued focus on helping us to address the
    maintenance backlog will get us there.
        Ms. Lavelle. Thank you for the last word. Senator, the one
    thing I would say that would make a difference is just what you
    are doing here today. You have made a conscious decision to
    come to a lesser-known park and have a public event. And I
    would say, in my tenure of six years here, this is the first
    elected representative that has ever visited Grant-Kohrs Ranch.
    So I applaud you, and I invite you to share that with your
    colleagues.
        Lesser-known parks are in every state in the country, and
    it is common and very easy to think, I am going to go to
    Yellowstone, I am going to Yosemite as my backdrop for my
    event, or for a citizenship ceremony, or for hosting some
    activity, or even going to an event. It is not common that
    lesser-known parks are thought of, and I appreciate the fact
    that you are willing to do that because we are absolutely
    willing to host events like this.
        Senator Daines. Well, thank you. Ms. O'Rourke, in your
    opening testimony you talked about a 150-mile kind of a radius
    where folks are going. I think of my own hometown in Bozeman,
    which is the fastest-growing micropolitan in America now, which
    is defined as 50,000 people or less. There are nearly 50,000
    people in Bozeman. All the folks move in there and you are
    exactly right on that radius, two hours, for that family that
    is looking for something to do on a weekend to kind of get off
    the beaten path.
        And so there are probably some opportunities right here in
    our backyard that we have around us, some of which I jotted
    down as well. You could--you drive another 500 people, you
    know, if that makes a dent, or 1,000, a couple thousand--
    126,000 visitors a year here.
        Well, thank you. I really appreciate the witnesses for your
    testimony and your thoughts. Jacque, thank you for all you did
    here to make this happen today. Thanks to our audience as well
    that is here to see what it is like sitting here. It is a
    little more relaxed here than in Washington. In some ways, this
    is the way Government works and it should work that way. I find
    we can bring DC out here to Montana. We have a discussion here
    that we got a number of to-dos that hopefully will drive the
    endgame here, which is increasing visitors coming to Grant-
    Kohrs, helping out Powell County and these communities around
    here.
        I want to thank the witnesses for your time and your
    testimony today. The hearing record will be open for two weeks.
        This hearing is now adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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