The Rhetoric of Tourism in Zion National Park

By: Emily Mildenhall

Home to the Big 5 National Parks, Utah attracts millions of tourists annually. Zion National Park alone has over 5 million yearly visitors, and the numbers keep increasing. This is no surprise to Washington County residents who are constantly surrounded by the majestic red summits, starry night skies, and the serene Virgin River that draw in so many visitors in the first place. 

The stories we tell about southern Utah are intrinsically tied to sand and water in many ways, and many of the attractions in Zion can attest to that. From its water features like Weeping Rock, the Emerald Pools, the Riverside Walk, and the Narrows to its more off-the-beaten-path trails like Angels Landing and Zion Canyon Overlook, Zion National Park is marketed as a must-see destination for adventurous individuals, and to a lesser extent, easygoing families and hikers.

In my exploration of how Zion is advertised in travel articles, I’ve found that it’s mainly marketed toward avid, active thrill-seekers. It’s not simply a scenic park to quietly reflect in; it’s an adventure to commit to. This isn’t to say that the park doesn’t have anything to offer for families with young children, people with limited mobility, or risk-averse tourists; some hikes are wheelchair accessible and have bathrooms right next to the trailheads. However, the majority of promotional travel articles (and even the National Park Service, to an extent) focus on Zion relative to the mythos of southern Utah: being your own pioneer, blazing strenuous trails, and living your own adventure. 

The adventure angle makes sense, but it's in perplexingly stark contrast to the Zion National Park Forever Project that speaks of the park with a quiet reverence, emphasizing communal responsibility rather than individual experiences: "The dramatic landscape of Zion is impressive to all. For some the impression goes deeper, evoking pure inspiration through feelings of wonder accompanied with the gravity of responsibility. There is an immensity here that is hard to explain, that all should have a chance to experience. Do you feel it? If so, you are a keeper of the sanctuary." The Zion National Park page on the National Parks Service website falls somewhere in between action and awe, describing Zion as a "unique array of plants and animals will enchant you as you absorb the rich history of the past and enjoy the excitement of present day adventures."

Promotional Article Information Visualization

              Figure 1

                Figure 2

Above are two visualizations based on the data in promotional travel articles about Zion National Park. To see what patterns would emerge, I first performed a close reading of 29 articles from the Go Utah, Greater Zion, and Visit Utah travel websites. It’s unclear when some of them were published, but the listed publication dates were all within the past 10 years. I pasted the text from each article into a Google Doc to eliminate any irrelevant words in the websites’ margins and copied the entire corpus (17,534 words) into Voyant. After I looked past the obvious terms like "Zion National Park," "trail," and "canyon," there were a few trends to contextualize.

"Hike" topped the chart with a whopping 83 mentions (see Figure 2), but that's no surprise. Each season also appeared several times with winter being mentioned the most (41), followed by summer (32), spring (22), then fall (15). Winter in Zion was a popular topic in a handful of the articles because of the snow and fewer tourists compared to the summer months. Several of the summer and spring articles also heavily warned against the dangers of dehydration and heatstroke, so perhaps advertising the winter months more was a strategic decision. Additionally, I found it intriguing that "water" appeared so many times, coming in second place for frequency. Maybe this is another strategic move in advertising; since Zion is located in a desert, highlighting the water features would make sense on some level.

The two most challenging hikes at Zion were also referenced frequently with Angels Landing showing up 40 times and the Narrows 39 times. Moreover, the mentions of river (36), cliffs (28), stunning (11), scenic (11), spectacular (13), adventure (22), and sandstone (23) further emphasize how Zion's natural beauty and distinct terrain are heavily marketed towards travelers. "Adventure" showing up that many times is an interesting development, especially considering "easy" showed up 30 times, suggesting that there would be a stronger focus on accessibility for tourists than I found in my close reading.

I was surprised by how many things you can actually do in Zion National Park, and I initially thought that more specific activities would have been represented in the word cloud (see Figure 1). I read about stargazing, bird watching, swimming, kayaking, and horseback riding for the textual analysis, but none of those showed up, although "campgrounds" did appear 10 times. 

Zion National Park Trails GIS Map

I created the above GIS map to do three things: 

1. To provide a visual of Zion National Park's unique topography through an aerial view, 
2. To display popular hiking trails and label them by difficulty, and
3. To infer which types of tourists would be best suited for each trail by analyzing the trails' characteristics.

This GIS map, titled "Zion National Park Trails and Tourism," has two layers. The first layer, titled "Levels of Difficulty," simply labels each trail as easy, moderate, or hard ("Zion Canyon Trail Descriptions"), and you will have to uncheck the second layer to see the color coding. The second layer, titled "Tourist Appeal," gives a short summary of each trail (informed by several Visit Utah articles; see citations), making an argument about who would be the most likely to frequent them based on nearby amenities, what is or isn't allowed on the trail, and how strenuous the trail is. Many of the trails also follow closely next to rivers and natural pools, which matches up with how much Zion travel articles emphasize water in the park.

One interesting detail about these trails is that there are more "easy" ones (6) than "moderate" (5) or "hard" (4) ones. Each level of difficulty has a similar number of trails within it, but that doesn't exactly track with what I found in my keyword analysis. Zion National Park is not equally promoted as an easygoing and challenging destination. As reflected in the information visualization above, Angels Landing and the Narrows appear more than any other trail in the promotional travel articles. In fact, none of the easy or moderate trails even made it into the word cloud.

Tourism Analysis

While the number of tourists to Zion National Park varies each year, on the whole, it has increased dramatically. According to the 2018 Tourism Report, Zion had 4.2 million visitors that same year. There were nearly 4.5 million Zion tourists in 2019, then the number dipped down to almost 3.6 million in 2020 (the beginning of Covid), then it rose back up to 5 million in 2021. It's difficult to say how much influence promotional travel articles may have had on these numbers, but the Utah Visitor Profile & Insights Reports for 2019 and 2021 (the only ones I could find) contain some notable statistics.

The Utah Visitor Profile & Insights Report for 2019 revealed that 15% of Utah's leisure visitors come to the state for "hard adventure"  (referring to activities like backpacking, canyoneering, kayaking, waterskiing, etc.), 14% come for "soft adventure" (bird watching, fishing, camping, seeing wildlife, etc.), and 12% come to see the actual National Parks (13). The report also concluded that "Western travelers tend to stay in the West," and proximity bears a heavy influence on where Utah's tourists come from (17). Domestic travelers most often come from Utah (56%), California (11%), Nevada (6%), Idaho (4%), Arizona (3%), Colorado (2%), Texas (2%), Wyoming (2%), and Washington (2%) (23). 

Tourists from Utah versus tourists from other states also tend to gravitate towards similar activities when they visit. The 2019 report shows that in-state visitors largely come to visit family, go shopping, and go sightseeing. Out-of-state visitors also come to see relatives and shop, but their third most common motivation for visiting is to see National Parks, monuments, and recreation areas (42). In contrast, native Utahns rank that activity as their 10th most common motivation. 

The 2021 Utah Visitor Profile & Insights Report sheds light on some pertinent demographic information in their analysis, as well. For one, "Utah is among the leading states for travelers with children" (59). Moreover, not only do travelers from Utah have more children, but travelers to Utah tend to have more children, too (54). Considering that statistic, one might expect more family-friendly advertising of Zion than thrill-seeking activities. Native Utahns also spend more time doing outdoor recreation activities than fine dining ("2021 Utah Visitor" 43), and they are "less likely than overall U.S. domestic visitors to stay in hotels and more likely to seek other accommodation such camping" (39). 

There is admittedly some gray area in the tourist analysis because the reports analyze visitors to all areas of the state, not just southwestern Utah, and there are dozens of outdoor areas where tourists could engage in hard or soft adventure, making it more difficult to really know if they're coming to see Zion, other national parks, or just to do some hiking. In the end, what brings travelers to Utah more than anything else are trips to see friends and family ("2021 Utah Visitor" 13).

Conclusion

After analyzing keyword frequencies and promotional trends in travel articles and patterns in Utah tourism, it's clear that the appeal of southern Utah is more complex than it seems. Are tourists drawn to the western mythos of rugged individualism through outdoor excursions? Absolutely. The visitor statistics and promotional articles both give ample evidence for that. However, considering the large percentage of tourists that come to southern Utah with children, why would travel websites like Go-Utah, Greater Zion, and Visit Utah still prioritize action and adventure over family-friendly outings?

The answer is actually quite simple. At first glance, one might infer that tourists with children probably wouldn't take them to climb Angels Landing or go slot canyoneering with them—right? On the contrary, it is possible that the appeal of exploration and adventure is, in a way, geared toward children as well as their parents. The sand and water features in southern Utah have a larger focus than just having fun outside, but perhaps even just exploring the unique beauty in Zion National Park, whether you're navigating the Narrows or strolling along the River Walk, is an adventure in itself.

References

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“2019 Tourism Report - Greater Zion.” Greater Zion, Greater Zion Convention and Tourism Office, 26 Mar. 2020, https://cdn.greaterzion.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/31111846/2019-Tourism-Report-1.pdf.

“2019 Utah Visitor Profile & Insights Report.” Travel-Utah.gov, Omnitrak, 19 June 2020, https://travel.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/Utah-Visitor-Report-Final-CY-2019-Revised-on-10072020.pdf.

“2020 Tourism Report - Greater Zion.” Greater Zion, Greater Zion Convention and Tourism Office, 2020, https://cdn.greaterzion.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/12140214/2020-Tourism-Report.pdf.

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