Cheyenne, Wyo. (AP) – The death of at least six foreign nationals in a Ardent van crash in eastern Idaho Recall that visitors who go to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks around the world travel on picturesque roads that can be as dangerous as the region's grizzly ones and hot hot pools.
The van collided with a van Thursday on a highway west of Yellowstone. The two vehicles caught fire and the survivors were taken to injured hospitals, police said. Tourists who were killed came from Italy and China, officials said.
The Chinese Consulate General of San Francisco said that eight Chinese citizens had been injured in the accident. The accident occurs almost four years after a bus from Las Vegas Wear Chinese tourists Returned to the Bryce National Park in southern Utah, killing four people and injuring dozens more.
Where was the Thursday's van from Thursday, he was unknown. Some Yellowstone roads, including that of the south of Old Faithful – the most famous geyser in the park – were still closed after the snowy winter.
The highway where the accident occurred south of West Yellowstone, Montana, offers a way to go between Yellowstone and Grand Teton during this period of the year, before a North-South route was plowed and the park opens entirely for the summer.
National parks, especially the world's first, Yellowstone, attract visitors from around the world
According to the most recent data in the International Trade Administration, 36% of international visitors who have arrived in the United States by plane indicated visits to national parks and national monuments as their best leisure activity in the United States
Seventeen percent of Yellowstone visitors came from other countries in 2016, according to a study for the use of the park with the most recent complete data available.
Visitors from Europe and Asia represented the majority of travelers from outside the United States, with 34% of China, 11% of Italy and 10% of Canada.
The Covid-19 pandemic has considerably changed these figures, said Brian Riley, whose company based in Wyoming, Old Hand Holdings, markets the Yellowstone region in China and runs tours.
“Each Chinese learns how big Yellowstone is in their primary school,” said Riley on Friday.
The pandemic put a lively brake on tourism of all kinds, but especially from China, which has not yet recovered, observed Riley. Now, visits to people who are already living in the United States are counted for most Chinese visits, he said.
“Foreigners in general, they do not feel safe here as they did before,” said Riley on Friday. “The Chinese somehow preaches behind the scenes.”
The American tourism industry expected 2025 to be another happy new year for foreign visitors. But several months, international arrivals fell. Angry by President Donald Trump price And rhetoricand alarmed by tourist reports borderSome citizens of other countries remain far from the United States and choose to travel elsewhere.
Riley, who grew up in Jackson, Wyoming, just south of Grand Teton and lived in China for a while to learn Mandarin and why Chinese wanted to visit the United States, is more concentrated from the end of visiting them Hawaii, a state perceived as less dangerous.
International visitors are all older
Yellowstone's crowd culminates in summer, but international tourism culminates in the spring and fall, according to Riley and the mayor of West Yellowstone, Jeff McBirnie.
Many foreign visitors are parents of international students in American colleges and universities.
“They are like:” Hey, let go of our child and go on vacation for a week. Or a graduate child, let's go to university and let's go on vacation '', said McBirnie, who has a pizza in town. “They really bring a huge economic impact to this city.”
Yellowstone suffered a punch between the pandemic And devastating floods In 2022 which cut access to the parts of the park for months.
Tourism rebounded with 4.7 million visitors last year, the second frequented Yellowstone.
A “legion” of road deaths during the last century
Saying roads and natural distractions help fuel many accidents in and around the park.
The first death involving a passenger vehicle in Yellowstone occurred just a few years after the park was completely motorized and a fleet of bus replaced the stage coaches and the horses used for transport in the first years of the park.
In 1921, a 10 passenger bus left the road in the park's fishing bridge area and at the bottom of an embankment, killing a 38 -year -old Texas woman when her neck was broken, according to the historian of Park Lee Whittlesey.
Whittlesey in his book “Deaths in Yellowstone”. Chronicle of deaths by all means – from drowning in Hot Springs, to wear maus, plane accidents and murders. Deaths, have written Whittlesey, are “legion” in the park, to the point that he felt them too ordinary to include deaths in his count.
Another accounting of Death in Yellowstone Said that at least 17 people have died inside the park in motor vehicle accidents since 2007, which ranks it the second most frequent death cause behind medical problems.
Whittlesey presumed the chapter of his book covering the deaths of roads with a quote attributed to Shipton, Mother Shipton of the 16th century: “Cars without horses go, and accidents fill the world of misfortune.”
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Brown reported Billings, Montana.
