Louisiana State Parks on the Rise

Power to the Parks

Six years after almost closing for lack of funds, restructured Louisiana State Parks are edging towards financial self-sufficiency

By James Fox-Smith

During the pandemic, Louisiana State Parks got busy. According to Brandon Burris, Assistant Secretary of Louisiana State Parks, Louisiana’s twenty-one parks saw visitation increase dramatically during 2020, as people went looking for safe ways to be active out of doors and close to home.

Now, with pandemic fears eased and more people getting out to do things, the state park habit seems to be sticking. “Over the Memorial Day weekend we had 22,000 people visit a Louisiana state park,” Burris said.

Fontainebleau State Park. .

Photo by Alexandra Kennon

More visitors equals more revenue, and Burris noted that during the fiscal year that ended June 30, the state’s parks collected $11.9 million in overnight and day-use fees—an increase of more than forty percent and around a third of the system’s operating budget of $35 million.

That’s a turnaround from the situation that Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser inherited when he took office in 2016, when according to Burris, the shortage of user-generated revenue made it likely that six or seven of Louisiana’s state parks would need to close. “Not only have we kept all twenty-one open, we’ve actually increased the number of hours they’re open,” Burris said. He explained that the agency accomplished this through a combination of increased fees, more efficient use of park personnel, and by expanding the number and variety of public-private partnerships, licensing more outside organizations to deliver services—like canoe or kayak rentals, horseback riding instruction, snoball stands, or even upmarket “glamping” experiences—on state park properties.

The strategy appears to be working. According to Burris, last year three Louisiana parks—Fontainebleau, Lake Fausse Pointe, and Palmetto Island— brought in more revenue than was spent to operate them. More are close behind. “On the July 4 weekend, the director at Bogue Chitto State Park (site of fourteen miles of mountain bike trails built in partnership with the Northshore Off-Road Bicycling Association) told me he counted license plates from eight states in his parking lot, and that it was impossible to find a hotel room nearby,” Burris said. He noted another interesting detail: Pre- COVID the state’s parks saw about a 70/30 split between in-state and out-ofstate visitors, but that now that number is closer to 92/8. “I guess that was the silver lining of COVID,” Burris said. “People looking for safe things to do came, they enjoyed it. And now they want to come and do it again.”

—James Fox-Smith

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