ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS

There are certain immutable conditions with which anyone interested in Colorado River management at the Grand Canyon must contend. One of the most important is the fact that demand for both commercial and private river trips far outstrips the available supply. There is no reason to believe that this fundamental condition will change in the foreseeable future.

Because demand is greater than supply, it is important to recognize that overall demand for the Grand Canyon river experience therefore cannot be satisfied. The only alternative left to the National Park Service then, is to effectively manage such demand in a fair and equitable way. This active, efficient management of private river trip demand on a fair and equitable basis comparable between outfitted and non-outfitted trip participants is currently almost wholly lacking.

In establishing permitting regulations for both the commercial and non-noncommercial sectors, the National Park Service is fully aware that not everyone who wants to go on a Grand Canyon river trip is going to have the opportunity. This is a hard reality that remains true no matter what the allocation ratio may end up being between the commercial and non-commercial sectors, be it 100 to zero percent, zero to 100 percent, or anywhere in between.

The Real People/Real Trip Dates reservation model is about managing the demand for non-commercial river trips in a fair and equitable way and in a way that assists the National Park Service to provide access to the river for the self-outfitted on par with what professionally outfitted patrons currently enjoy.

Within the model, several essential components and/or management variables are structured to allow those serious and prepared to put a private river trip on the water to do so with relative ease. Those who need to wait for plans to come together or their group’s members to become serious or able to make the necessary concrete commitment to the trip are encouraged to wait outside of the system, not inside the system on a government managed waiting list as is currently the case.

The model’s limiting factors impose reasonable and equitable disincentives to prevent the frivolous or speculative booking of trips well out into the future. These built-in variables also offer National Park Service administrators a means to fine-tune the system to produce desired results.

In exchange for tolerating these burdens, the self-guided river runner is rewarded with reasonable access to the river comparable to professionally outfitted passengers who are themselves subject to a variety of demand management policies, including the significant cost of guided trips and strict trip reservation and cancellation policies.

Much debate and discussion revolves around the question, what is reasonable access? We define it here for discussion purposes as open and available launch dates within a twelve to thirty-six month period, depending on several conditions such as the desirability of the launch date sought and the group’s willingness to accept a less desirable launch date.

The plan elements and requirements described below constitute the heart of this reservations model. It is the potential imposition of these requirements that offers the hope of reasonable and active management of private river trip demand in a fashion that will also provide reasonable access to the river for those ready and serious about launching a trip. Many of these same, or substantially similar, requirements have worked on the commercial side for years in exactly the desired fashion. These are not new untested ideas, but practices used around the world to achieve the results desired in this context. There is every reason to believe that they will work similarly well in the Grand Canyon.

I. Every participant in each group must be identified at the time of booking and a significant percentage of the original group must accompany the trip at time of launch. In order to provide some flexibility, the swapping of a reasonable but small percentage of the original identified participants would be allowed upon payment of a reasonable administrative fee. The swapping of launch dates between mutually consenting groups would also be facilitated, again to provide flexibility.

Purpose: To create a disincentive for the booking of trips far out into the future and to prevent multiple bookings by the same group or individual at the same time. To encourage groups who are not yet committed to the idea of their trip to wait outside the system. These requirements would also, in the main, prevent speculation in permits or the selling of trip passenger spaces after a reservation was made. They are critical and essential components of the Real People/Real Trip Dates concept.

II. Payment would be required of a reasonable trip security bond at the time of booking calculated on a per participant basis and refundable minus park fees with a successful launch and trip conclusion. Each individual would be responsible for payment of that individual’s portion of the security bond directly to the National Park Service.

Purpose: Again, to create a disincentive for the booking of trips well out into the future and to ensure a high level of equally accepted commitment to the trip by all participants before the group is allowed lock up space thereby denying that space to other users. Payment of the bond encourages group participants to be serious about their commitment to their fellow trip participants and to other private river runners seeking to interact with the system.

Over time, a natural equilibrium would result between the demand for private trips and the risk associated with the loss of the trip security bond. Once the system stabilized after an initial transition period, the average wait for open reservations would become well known and system predictability would result.

III. An individual would be allowed to hold only one reservation at a time on the launch calendar.

Purpose: To ensure fairness to all users by eliminating the ability of an individual or a group with substantially similar members from occupying multiple spots on the launch calendar at the same time. This requirement would prevent a small group of repeat users from unfairly monopolizing a portion of the available use. This requirement goes to the fair rationing of highly sought after use in a context where demand vastly exceeds supply.

MANAGEMENT VARIABLES

Many of the model’s essential components also provide management levers or variables adjustable by park administrators. These variables are described below as are the effects their adjustment one way or another would have on the system. In short, changes to the plan that reduce the risk of making a reservation well out into the future would result in longer wait times for open launch dates. Changes that increase the risk would do the opposite, shortening the wait and providing more ready access to committed, organized groups. It should be said that fairness and reasonableness issues in addition to other management concerns must also be addressed as part of the determination of the specific levels of these management variables.

The model’s major variables include: the amount of the per passenger trip security bond and the percentage of swappable trip participants after booking.

Requiring a larger security bond increases the level of commitment required to safely make a reservation. Decreasing the size of the bond does the opposite. The higher the bond the less inclined a group will be to book well out into the future, thereby exposing itself to escalating degrees of risk.

If too large a percentage of trip participants can be substituted after the reservation is locked in, the disincentive against booking trips well in advance originally sought by the imposition of this requirement could be diluted to the point of ineffectiveness. Speculation in trip permits and the marketing of trip slots could result. In fact, it may be necessary to disallow any substitution of participants in very small group sizes.

EXPECTED RESULTS

The Real People/Real Trip Dates reservation model is designed to allow greater access to the river for those applicants who are ready and able to put a trip on the water while encouraging those who are not ready to wait outside the system. The model would provide those willing to meet the system’s requirements, which are commonly applied throughout the international traveling industry, with reasonable access to a known and dependable launch date for their river trip with perhaps a twelve to thirty-six month lead time.

The system would prevent the now common practice whereby essentially the same group of boaters occupies multiple places on the waiting list in an attempt to generate for it’s members multiple future trip options, thereby shutting other less motivated applicants out of the system. As the system imposes the requirements to provide a refundable security trip bond and to identify all the group’s participants at the time of booking, it offers much more ready access to the river for a much greater number of private boaters.

Only those who are ready to commit to a trip – with known dates and known participants – would generally be willing to put down the necessary trip security bond to commit to a specific reservation. Because the costs associated with less than fully committed applications would be high, potential applicants who need to wait until conditions are right for their trip to come together would be discouraged from clogging the system while they wait. This is the situation with professionally outfitted trips currently.

More ready access would provide people with assurance that they would no longer have to get on a waiting list simply to make possible the option of doing a trip at some distant point in the future. People would no longer be forced to hedge their bets by standing in line for years on end only to make the go/no-go decision about their trip after being awarded a permit.

CONCLUSION

Ask yourself, what would happen with professionally outfitted trips if at the end of each trip the participants were informed that if they were even merely considering another trip sometime in the next ten or fifteen years, they must place their name on a government waiting list now simply to preserve the option of doing a trip years and years in the future?

Almost everyone would say, "hey, I’m not quite sure of my plans in ten or fifteen years, but I want the option. I at least want to preserve the possibility of doing another trip. I’d better get on the list just in case."

And almost overnight, a huge waiting list of potential professionally outfitted river trip patrons and a tremendous roadblock to ready access to outfitted Grand Canyon river trips would immediately be created.

This is exactly what has happened concerning the system for distributing non-commercial river trip permits. The waiting list itself has become a self-generating, unwieldy, unnecessary, unfair, and artificial barrier to ready access to the river for the self-guided. The current scheme should be abolished for it is fatally flawed.

A Real People/Real Trip Dates reservation model provides a much better alternative. This approach holds great promise as a significant component in the overall effort to provide reasonable access, on par with what professionally outfitted patrons currently enjoy, to the Grand Canyon river experience for those interested in the self-guided experience.