National parks across the country witnessed around 332 million visits in 2024, the highest ever recorded tally of park tourism, according to numbers published Wednesday by the National Park Service.
But that’s not something park employees were encouraged to celebrate.
Before the numbers were made public, park communications staff were told not to issue press releases or other “proactive communications” like social media posts to publicize the record visitation, according to internal guidance viewed by POLITICO’s E&E News.
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“There is no external communication rollout for 2024 visitation data,” the guidance from earlier this week said. The annual visitation data went live on the NPS website Wednesday.
