Besides the Grand Canyon, it operates tourist facilities at premier national parks such as Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, Death Valley, Bryce, Zion, Petrified Forest and Everglades. But Amfac is not alone. About 500 concessionaires operate in 384 national parks, monuments and historic areas. Amfac, Delaware North and Aramark have some of the largest concession deals. More than 286 million visit U.S. national parks each year, the equivalent of one visit for every American.
Concessionaires also pay to build and improve park lodges and other facilities.
But unlike other commercial leases, park leaseholders who give up their interests are paid on the full replacement costs of the facilities they build or repair in the park instead of a depreciated value of those assets. And at the same time, concessionaires are allowed to depreciate the value of facilities for tax purposes. Concessions reform legislation in 1998 had included language to phase out those payments, but it was removed in a compromise to get the bill passed, said David Brooks, Democratic counsel for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Deal's 'dampening effect' Amfac has run the nearly 900-park hotel rooms and other visitor services at the Grand Canyon for the past 30 years under its existing park contract. In 1968, Amfac acquired the Fred Harvey Co., which had run visitor facilities since the park's inception in 1919, and built many of the facilities before that, including the historic El Tovar Hotel in 1905.