Anonymous
scared commercial guide

   The NPS is charged with many things. Among them is making sure the unskilled public has access to decent river trips at a fair price and assuring outfitters a reasonable opportunity for profit. My question is how, in the last twenty years, did the NPS’s definition of fair price and reasonable profit come to accept today’s commercial river trip prices? Twenty years ago trips went for $50-80 per day. Even ten years ago a commercial trip could be found at $100/day. Now they’re $180 to $250+ per day and still rising.

   To try to get some idea of what the trips really cost, I got quotes this week for two local companies that outfit private trips. They include: boats and all gear, complete food pack, transport for gear and all folks to and from the trip and information on how it all works. The only thing missing was the boatmen. Now these outfits, like the full-blown commercial outfitters, maintain an office, vehicles and a warehouse year-round. They advertise, answer their phones, insure their operation, and carry most of the same financial burden that commercial companies do. They even pay the boss a salary.

   The cost per person for a trip: between $30 an $40 a day.

   Is it any wonder that the private demand has gone through the ceiling? Is it any surprise that the client cross section on commercial trips is going more and more to the rich and retired classes?

   Okay, I’ll grant that the commercial sector has a few more expenses. Boatman’s wage can run from (including 25% overhead for state comp, taxes, etc.) $35-40 per passenger per day for the higher paid rowing guides (to as low as $7-10 for the lower paid motor guides).

   Then there’s the pay-off of overpriced company sales (the sale of user days was and is supposed to be illegal). Let’s go high end- a small company of 5000 user-days sells for $1,000,000, amortized over 15 years at 10% -that’s about $25 per user-day (a moot point when you consider that over half the outfitters are still the original owners and the rest of the sales are, for the most part, fully amortized.)

   Umm, let’s see...we can add on about $3-5 for passenger insurance…

   Now I know some of the outfitters are giving the guides some added benefits; some are making a real effort to contribute to worthy projects like resource trips, guide training trips and the like, and more power to them- but divide that into their total number of user days and it doesn’t come to a huge amount.

   And on top of all this we can add a 5 to 12 % franchise fee (the average is 8% or below).

   I’m struggling to get it up to $100 a user-day, you guys. Where is the other $100 per user day going? Either it’s being inefficiently spent by the outfitters on something the rental outfits have found a far more efficient way to do, or it’s…

   perhaps it’s milking the public…
   the wealthy members of the public…
   for as much as the market will bear…
   It ain’t right.

   Why is the NPS looking the other way?