Great Smoky Mountains, Parkway top list of visitors

Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway again top the list for recreation popularity in the nation, the National Park Service announced Wednesday.

According to visitation numbers for 2017, the Blue Ridge Parkway was the most the visited site in the National Park system, while Great Smoky Mountains National Park was the most visited park.

Amanda Marr, marketing director for the Sevierville Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the presence of both top national park destinations drives the economy for many mountain communities.

“People don’t realize how popular Great Smoky Mountains National Park is,” she said. “Our park is so well-loved and so gorgeous, and we are just blessed.”

Marr said Sevier County alone sees a $2 billion impact from tourism, and she said visitors repeatedly tell her staff that they came there because of “those beautiful views” in and around the park.

Leesa Brandon, a spokesperson for the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville, said it is notable that two local National Park Service destinations topped the list.

She said there are two lists because the Park Service operates parks and other non-park sites.

“There are over 400 types of park system units. There are historic homes, battlefields, national seashores,” she said. “There are national parks, parkways; there are memorials.”

The Blue Ridge Parkway is the most popular of all those sites, recording 16,093,765 recreation visits in 2017, according to the Park Service announcement.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park ranks most popular among specific national parks, seeing 11,388,893 recreation visits in 2017. That is nearly double the 6.2 million people who visited Grand Canyon National Park, the second most popular.

The top three park properties in 2017 were Blue Ridge Parkway, Golden Gate National Historic Area in San Francisco and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Those three are also the only park sites to see more than 10 million recreation visits in 2017.