If tourism and pro sports had a Las Vegas prize fight, you’d have the Great Smoky Mountains, the Everglades and Mammoth Cave in one corner and Major League Baseball, the NFL and the NBA in the other.
At the end of 10 rounds, the national parks would eke out a victory because America’s national parks tallied 275 million visits in 2007 — more than the total attendance of MLB, the NFL, the NBA, soccer and NASCAR combined.
The gain over 2006 was modest (just 3 million), but that came in the face of higher gas prices. Wonder which park was king of the hill?
National park attendance
Among the biggies:- Great Smoky Mountains NP: 9.3 million
- Grand Canyon NP: 4.4 million
- Yosemite NP: 3.5 million
- Yellowstone NP: 3.1
Nineteen national parks topped one million visits in 2007.