Yellowtone Park Benefits

If the National Park Service were to raise the entry fee for the Yellowstone Park, various implications would be felt by different groups of society. To begin, citizens and tourists would both benefit and suffer from this increased membership fee. The heightened exclusivity can enhance the overall experience of visiting the park due to the minimized human congestion and lowered overexploitation of this common property resource, whilst also discouraging regular visitors who’ve grown accustomed to the $25 entry fee and the consequential congestion. In essence, these people would rather pay a modest fee to gain an amateur experience than pay more, for an enhanced experience; their willingness to go to Yellowstone, doesn’t override their indisposition to pay the …show more content…
Overall, the value of the park is heightened so long as good policies are enforced. Concurrently, the government, economy, and labourers in the park also gain, if the profits of their increased fee, exceed their previous profits. The increased wealth can be invested towards further growth or expansion of the park to again, elevate the quality of the Yellowstone park experience. Simultaneously, closed access sparks innovations to produce alternatives or substitutes that are similar to the Yellowstone experience. Thus, we see that the economy will always benefit from increased exclusivity. Next, the National Park Service has yet to increase the entry fee due to a lack of incentives to change their policies. The owners of the common property resource can be divided into two different groups, the citizens, along with the National Park Service and the government. These groups are defined by the different goals they have in mind of what they wish to extract from the park - the citizens want to enjoy their visit to a national park (in which part of their enjoyment comes from a cheap entry fee), and the latter wants to gain money from these