SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s booming tourism industry is causing both economic growth and costly growing pains at two gateway cities leading to some of the state’s acclaimed Mighty 5 national parks.

“We weren’t ready for them and now we’re trying to play catch up,” Springdale Mayor Stan Smith said of the increase in visitors to Zion National Park. “It’s a two-edged sword.”

Last year, a record 4.3 million people passed through Zion — a sharp uptick from just half a decade ago in 2011 when the park hosted 2.8 million guests.

Over at Arches National Park, it’s a similar situation as park rangers figure out how to deal with traffic jams and sewage from the additional visitors.

“Take it one car at a time, one visitor at a time,” Arches National Park Ranger Jodi Rupp told fellow employees at the entrance station. “We are a bucket list park for a lot of folks wanting to see Delicate Arch.”

Rupp believes the surge in tourists is the new normal and “not going away.” In 2016, 1.6 million visitors entered Arches, compared with just over 1 million in 2011.

Mighty 5 Campaign

Utah’s award-winning Mighty 5 advertising campaign is credited with putting Utah’s red rock country on the map. The highly produced ads showcase the Beehive State as a one-stop destination for accessing five national parks collectively known as the Mighty 5.

“The Mighty 5 was a huge, spectacular breakthrough,” said Vicki Varela, director of the Utah Office of Tourism.

The advertising blitz has been so successful that Smith said some locals want the promotions to stop.

“The biggest problem is not having enough employees,” Smith said of Springdale, which sits directly outside the entrance of Zion.

“We get both credit and blame,” Varela said of the increased visitation since the launch of the campaign in 2013.

“We can all feel proud that our state is beloved around the world,” Varela said. “The challenges are big enough to see and small enough to solve.”

Varela said her office is listening to the management at Utah’s national parks as they work to manage the ever-increasing popularity.

Visitor Management Plans

To deal with overcrowding, officials at Arches and Zion are currently developing Visitor Use Management Plans that could include timed-entry reservation systems and daily visitor caps.

“The goal is that visitors come here, they enjoy their time here and they leave happy,” said Arches National Park Superintendent Kat Cannon. “We’ve got to take these steps now so that we can get ahead of it.”

Congestion at Arches could get worse before it gets better, Cannon said, due to major road construction this summer inside the park that will include an additional entrance lane to keep traffic from backing up on Highway 191.

“This is huge,” Cannon said of the project. “It will be very disruptive.”

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Meanwhile, park officials at Zion National Park are studying similar approaches to visitation with the hopes of protecting the visitor experience and the natural resources of the park.

Even this January, as Zion battled flooding and rockslides, visitation set a record of nearly 90,000 people.

“We have to do something,” said Zion National Park public information officer John Marciano. “We want people to come here and still enjoy this beautiful park.”

Key to Zion’s approach will be deciding whether certain hikes, like the crowded Angels Landing, should require a permit and if the rangers should turn people away at the entrance gate if the canyon gets too full.

Local Economies

In the towns just outside Arches and Zion, the exploding visitation is being felt in positive ways for local businesses.

“It’s been great for the local economy; great for small business like ours,” said Nick Oldham with High Point Hummer and ATV. “We’re loving it.”

The company is moving into a new building in order to accommodate more customers.

“We’re growing,” Oldham said, while acknowledging that the only challenge for him is finding respite from the crowds. “I have to go further and further into the back country to seek solitude.”

“It kind of depends what side of the tourism you are on,” said Mike Sherman, who has lived in Moab for three decades.

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Most locals embrace tourism because of the economic benefits, Sherman explained, even if they do wax nostalgic from time to time.

“It’s kind of sad to see the old sleepy, little town disappear,” he said.

Besides direct proceeds from visitor spending, the towns also benefit from the taxes collected from tourists. The Utah Office of Tourism announced this month that travelers spent $8.17 billion in Utah in 2015 and contributed $1.15 billion in state and local taxes.

“Tourism significantly bolsters the economy and strengthens our tax base,” Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said in a press release prepared by the tourism office.

Smith said he is constantly reminding residents of the benefits of tourism and the taxes collected, which subsidize city services like road construction and public safety departments.

“All that wouldn’t be possible if the tourists weren’t here,” he said.

Growing Pains

“We’re probably the motel capital of the state,” Grand County Building Official Jeff Whitney said of Moab. “I got an application for another one yesterday.”

In Moab, the surge of visitors has overwhelmed the city’s aging sewage treatment plant. To maintain water-quality standards, the city has implemented a six-month moratorium on sewage connections for hotels and businesses.

“That’s a huge amount of waste that we are processing,” Whitney said.

The city is in a race against the clock to build a new $12 million wastewater treatment facility. Until it’s completed, the current facility is no longer accepting trucked-in sewage from nearby campgrounds and Arches National Park.

The decision is forcing the park to pay overtime and find additional equipment to haul the sewage more than 100 miles away.

“The round trip is like five hours when you’re driving a truck like that,” said Cannon.

Looking into the future, Whitney predicts the building boom will continue once the new sewage treatment plant is finished in 18 months.

“I hope we’re able to accommodate people who want to come here,” Whitney said. “I hope we’re able to accommodate the local people who want to live here.”

Future of Utah Tourism

“There’s really only one industry that benefits virtually every county in the state and that’s tourism,” Varela said.

Seeking more funding for the operation of Utah’s national parks will be a key priority for her office this year, Varela said, adding that the parks have seen funding cuts in recent years, even as visitation skyrocketed.

The answer to some of the tourism-related problems could actually be more tourism. That is why tourism officials on the state and local level are working to increase tourism in the offseason.

Making Utah’s national parks year-round destinations could possibly ease visitation during the peak summer months. Also, it would allow businesses in tourist towns to offer more than seasonal employment.

“People have mortgage payments, they don’t go away; your food bills don’t go away nor do your utilities,” said Elaine Gizler, director of the Moab Area Travel Council. “So we’d like to keep people employed 12 months a year.”

The effort also seeks to spread tourists out geographically.

Building on the success of the Mighty 5, the Utah’s tourism office has launched the “Road To Mighty” campaign, which encourages road trips on Utah’s 27 scenic byways through smaller towns and to lesser-known attractions, including state parks.

“The research indicates that visitors are having a spectacular experience here,” Varela said.

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