The gate across the Colonial Parkway at the entrance to Historic Jamestowne was barred during the federal government shutdown in October. (Photo by Brittany Voll/WYDaily)
More than 3.16 million people visited the Colonial National Historical Park for recreational purposes in 2013, which was a decrease of more than 105,000 visitors.
The 401 national parks had more than 273.6 million visitors last year, a decrease of about 9.1 million people — about 3 percent — compared with 2012. The Park Service attributed a loss of 7.88 million visitors to the 16-day federal government shutdown in October.
Ten days into the shutdown Preservation Virginia tried to reopen its portion of Historic Jamestowne, which is situated in National Park Service land, but was unsuccessful. The next day the group was allowed to reopen, but had already lost an estimated $60,000 in ticket sales.
Looking solely at the Colonial National Historical Park, which benefited from 3,168,731 visitors in 2013, March through September were the most visited months with more than 300,000 visitors in each of those months. July was the most visited month at 365,886. The least visited month was January at 119,042.
January is the only month with visitation data for this year, and 136,538 visitors stopped in the park. The number is an increase of nearly 17,500 people compared with last year.
Visitation at Colonial National Historical Park increased between 1933 — when the park had 66,418 visitors — and 1970, when there were 8,721,100. The number of park visitors decreased in the early 1970s before rising again and topping out at 8,558,803 in 1981.
Visitor numbers took a dive in 1983, dropping to about 2 million guests from more than 8.5 million visitors the year before. Since 1983, the number of visitors has hovered in the 1 million to 3 million range, never breaking 3.5 million.
The National Park Service last week released information about the amount of money earned by parks in 2012. Colonial National Historical Park’s nearly 3.3 million visitors spent more than $176 million in the park’s region, which covers a 60-mile area outside the park’s boundaries. During the year, 2,539 jobs were added to the regional job market. Of the $176 million, more than $74 million was accounted for in labor income, which includes wages, salaries and benefits.
Of the total visitors to the park in 2012, more than 2.75 million were not local to the area and spent more than $168 million while visiting. Non-local spending supported 2,427 of the 2,539 total jobs with a labor income of more than $71.2 million.