East Sierra tourist businesses lose millions each day that the artery is closed in spring, visitors bureau officials say. They don't let people drive through on Tioga. They close down bathrooms. They raise the gate fee. They make it hard for people to go there.
Yosemite officials defend their policies, saying they protect the park.
They said they are helping tourism by managing it for the public. We take a lot of misguided flak about tourism. We're land managers, and our mandate is to preserve and protect the park for everyone to be able to see it. The government is not completely detached from the tourism impacts, though. It receives the annual fee based on the concession's gross revenue, which suffers when the visitor totals slump.