But the picture started shrinking two years ago. Now, inside Yosemite, a worried park concession offers new discounts to attract customers to its motels and restaurants and to its ski lifts and stables. The concession's gross revenues slipped several percentage points, mirroring the visitation dip. Outside Yosemite, tour businesses are riding the ups and downs as they wait and debate the fixes inside the park. But lawsuits over environmental issues have slowed restoration plans.
Many current visitors have no problem with that timetable.
It was getting so it wasn't worth it to go up to Yosemite. But the slump plays differently for business owners who rely on tourists. Public records are not readily available for the private businesses, so it is difficult to track their losses. Nobody is predicting what the concession will make this year, but everyone knows the hurdles. Those hurdles began to emerge in January 1997 when the Merced River filled the valley with a record-setting flood.