>> and comments from Ben Harding snipped
Well, good luck selling it, 'cause I don't think it'll happen anytime soon.
The basic problem being that it pretty much undermines the possibility of
running a successful business of commercial trips in the Grand Canyon. If a
company cannot be reasonably certain of being able to fill trips regularly,
they can't stay in business. They are supposed to wait around until enough
people with launch dates near a certain time call in and say, "we have a
mid-June date, will you take us down the river?" - it'll never happen. They
have to be able to sell a trip on a certain date in advance. It's somewhat
admirable, this idea, but it won't happen because it's not feasible to
maintain commercial companies. And whether or not people on this list like
it, there is a big market for commercial trips. If you undermine the
commercial business, you displace those people and simply switch the
inequity. There will also probably be a lot more yahoos who don't know what
the hell they are doing trying to run the river on their own, which is a
safety issue.
Also, how can you have employees if you don't offer them any job
security whatsoever? There is already little enough job security for
boatmen. You really think it's fair and feasible to have commercial
companies where the companies can't hire guides in the winter and tell them
they have work for the season? I also wonder whether, in the effort to
treat commercial and private boaters the "same", people are suggesting that
commercial boatmen be restricted to the same number of trips as other
people, e.g. 3 trips in five years. Well, there goes your commercial
company, the profession of river guiding in the Grand Canyon, and skilled
and experienced guides on commercial trips, which is what people are paying
for.
I think there is a fundamental difference between commercial and
private trips, and I think that's good. What's wrong with just allocating a
greater percentage of launches to private boaters, without doing everything
else to try to manage commercial trips? I don't see what's wrong with the
way commercial trips are run. The problem is just that they have a much
higher fraction of the user days than privates, and a fraction that is not
representative of the total demand.
If you treat everything the same, then what do you get? I'd say one
thing you get is the end of 18-day private trips. Only privates have long
trips like that. Commercial trips are between a week and 2 weeks long. If
you throw everything into a common pool, you have to recognize that no
longer will private boaters be favored with longer trips. In the interests
of not increasing overall use, it would force shorter trips. Well, one of
the great things about the Canyon is that you can do a trip that is longer
than 2 weeks. I think that would disappear if you try to pretend that
private and commercial trips are the same animal. They are not. They are
totally different. Ask anyone who has done a lot of both, like me.
A couple of other concerns raised by these suggestions -
I think the access comments miss some big issues. Ben said separate access
from outfitting and that part of the prohibitive cost of a commercial trip
is the "selling" of access. But, that's because outfitters pay big bucks
for a permit, right? I'm asking because I don't know in GC, but on every
river I've worked in Idaho and Calif, outfitters buy a commercial permit
and it is not cheap. Of course, you have to pass this cost on in the cost
of the trip. If you suggest getting rid of the commercial permits, so
outfitters no longer have to pay for their rights to run trips, where's all
that money going to come from? From individual boaters. If the distribution
stays the same, it won't decrease the costs for the commercial passengers.
If the cost of access goes down for commercial passengers, it will go up
for private boaters, because NPS, or whoever gets that money now, isn't
going to stand for losing it. You'll be robbing Peter to pay Paul, and I'm
not sure of the overall benefit. But, maybe there is something totally
different about the way commercial permitting in the Canyon works?
Another concern I have about getting rid of permitted outfitters -
if you open up the Canyon to unregulated outfitting, do you necessarily get
the best protection for the Canyon? I know it's very American to say
everything ends up better for the consumer if there is totally free
competition and everything is regulated only by the marketplace, but it is
clearly not always true (witness HMO's). With a quadrillion companies
trying to make a go of a now marginal business (because of the new
uncertainties from the common pool method), where are the constraints? I
think long-lived companies with an investment in the resource have a sense
of proprietorship that makes than want to protect and maintain it. Where is
that motivation for the free-for-all companies that have made no initial
investment for a permit, and simply want to grab as much money out of the
system as they can quickly? I don't think it's there. Also, I am concerned
about introducing lots of new different guiding services - that's not
necessarily a plus - Joe's JetBoat Canyon tours - do the Canyon by jet boat
and have a baloney boat carry your gear. Great. Well, it would probably
decrease demand for other trips.
One other comment - I think there is something to be said for
rewarding people who are ready to give up things for their Canyon trip, or
are ready to get up and go at a moment's notice for a trip. There's all
this talk about how times change over 8 years and maybe now you have kids
that have school and you can't go etc etc. I agree that 8 years is too long
to wait, and that it would be nice to be able to have some sense of where
you'll be in life when you get your permit, but there is also some element
of valuing the trip that comes into play. How important is the Canyon trip
to you? People who give up things to go, whether it's a whole lifestyle -
people who choose the financial precariousness of a freer lifestyle - or
something more short-term like use up all their vacation or sick leave or
take unpaid leave or quit their job or take the kids out of school or
whatever - are showing the degree to which they value the Canyon trip. It
is clearly greater than that of people who do not make those sacrifices - I
think it's OK that they be rewarded to some extent for their extra
devotion. People give up a lot to have a lifestyle that allows them to get
up and go. Why should the people with the steady income, house, insurance,
retirement fund, all the bennies of stable lifestyle necessarily have the
rules changed to suit them in scheduling their Canyon trips?
Anyway, these are just some thoughts in response to what I saw as
an oversimplification of a problem and a solution that does not take into
account the needs of everyone, but favors a certain group. This is not to
say that I don't think the current system is also inequitable and favors a
certain group (enough negatives in there for you?). I just don't think all
those facile solutions will solve problems for anyone except middle class
private boaters. I don't see this helping poor boaters at all, for example.
I suspect the cost of doing a private trip will increase if these
suggestions are implemented. It won't be as much as a commercial trip is,
of course, so it won't be limited to the rich as those trips are, but it
may knock the bottom people off the rungs, as the new fees have already
begun to do. I know that doesn't matter to most people, at least those not
on the bottom rungs, but it matters to me. I am also, as usual, bugged by
the anti-commercial-guide tone of it all, but I've been through that
already. I would like to see a reallocation of user days to reflect the
true demand of private and commercial boaters. But, I don't like some of
the other suggestions that change the nature of both commercial and private
boating. I think they are unnecessary intrusions into things that aren't
germaine to the issue of access. I'd love to hear if I have misinterpreted
and why.
Judy
====================================================================
To subscribe, send email to majordomo@songbird.com, with "subscribe
gcboaters" as the only line in the message body. To unsubscribe send
"unsubscribe gcboaters". For further information send "info
gcboaters", or see http://www.songbird.com/gcboaters
====================================================================