Visitor Experience Improvements Authority Contracts

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>National Park Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>36 CFR Part 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[NPS-WASO-39268; PPWOBSADC0; PPMVSCS1Y.Y00000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1024-AE47</RIN> <SUBJECT>Visitor Experience Improvements Authority Contracts</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Park Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This rule implements the Visitor Experience Improvements Authority given to the National Park Service by Congress in Title VII of the National Park Service Centennial Act. This authority allows the National Park Service to award and administer commercial services contracts and related professional services contracts for the operation and expansion of commercial visitor facilities and visitor services programs in units of the National Park System. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective February 18, 2025. <E T="03">Information collection requirements:</E> If you wish to comment on the information collection requirements in this final rule, please note that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is required to make a decision concerning the collection of information contained in this final rule between 30 and 60 days after publication of this final rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Therefore, comments should be submitted to OMB by February 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Docket:</E> The comments received on the proposed rule and a related economic analysis are available in the docket for this rulemaking. Visit <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/</E> and search for Docket ID: NPS-2022-0003. <E T="03">Information Collection Requirements:</E> Written comments and suggestions on the information collection requirements should be submitted by the date specified above in <E T="02">DATES</E> to <E T="03">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function. Please provide a copy of your comments to the NPS Information Collection Clearance Officer (ADIR-ICCO), 13461 Sunrise Valley Drive, (MS-244) Herndon, VA 20171 (mail); or <E T="03">phadrea_ponds@nps.gov</E> (email). Please include “1024-AE47” in the subject line of your comments. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kurt Rausch, Chief of Commercial Services Program, National Park Service; (202) 513-7202; <E T="03">kurt_rausch@nps.gov.</E> For questions regarding the NPS's information collection request contact <E T="03">phadrea_ponds@nps.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">NPS Authorities To Contract for Commercial Visitor Services</HD> The National Park Service (NPS) enters into concession contracts with persons and entities to provide commercial visitor services in over 100 units of the National Park System. Examples of such services include lodging, food, retail, marinas, transportation, and recreational activities. NPS concession contracts generate approximately $1.8 billion per year in gross receipts, while returning approximately $180 million in franchise fees to the NPS. What was commonly known as the National Park Service Concession Policies Act of 1965 (1965 Act), Public Law 89-249, provided the first comprehensive statutory authority for the NPS to issue concession contracts. Since the repeal of the 1965 Act, concession contracts have been awarded under the National Park Service Concessions Management Improvement Act of 1998 (1998 Act), 54 U.S.C. 101911-101926. NPS regulations in 36 CFR part 51 govern the solicitation and award of concession contracts issued under the 1998 Act and the administration of concession contracts issued under the 1965 and 1998 Acts. The National Park Service Centennial Act (Centennial Act), 54 U.S.C. 101931-101938, established the Visitor Experience Improvements Authority (VEIA) allowing the NPS to solicit, award, and administer commercial services contracts for the operation and expansion of commercial visitor facilities and visitor services programs in units of the National Park System. The VEIA supplements, but does not replace, the existing authority granted to the NPS in the 1998 Act to enter into concession contracts, or any other existing NPS authorities to provide commercial visitor services in units of the National Park System. The VEIA is also separate from authorities granted under the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act and Federal Acquisition Regulations. The VEIA established a revolving fund that the NPS can use for expenses necessary for the management, improvement, enhancement, operation, construction, and maintenance of commercial visitor services and facilities within the National Park System; and for the payment of possessory interest and leasehold surrender interest for concession contracts. Funds collected pursuant to contracts awarded under the VEIA will be credited to the revolving fund, and the NPS is authorized to transfer to the revolving fund, without reimbursement, any additional funds or revenue in connection with the functions carried out under the VEIA. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Differences Between VEIA and the Concession Contracts Authority</HD> The VEIA is intended to provide additional tools to expand, modernize, and improve the condition of commercial facilities and visitor services using contracting models that differ from and are in addition to the concession contracts used under the 1998 Act. These models include management agreements and percentage lease agreements found in the private hospitality industry, as well as other contract models that are consistent with the VEIA. There are differences in the revenue management and fee structure for contract models that may be used under the VEIA, as discussed below. These models may be used to provide a variety of commercial visitor services such as lodging, food, retail, marinas, transportation, camping, and recreational activities. The use of industry-standard models and industry-aligned contract terms may allow and encourage additional companies to bid on hospitality business opportunities in System units, thereby enhancing the visitor experience both at the particular System unit and across the System. Under a management agreement, the NPS would own the assets and proceeds of the business. The operator would provide staff and expertise to run the business in exchange for the NPS paying the operator a base fee plus an incentive fee. The NPS would authorize the operator to use available funds and revenue for operations ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> property maintenance, the purchase of supplies, furniture, and other personal property) and improvements ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> facility upgrades and repairs). Any financial return beyond what is needed for the business would be credited to the revolving fund. Under a percentage lease agreement, the operator would retain the revenue and pay a fee to the NPS. This would be similar to the concession contract model, although the fee structure under a percentage lease agreement would include payment of a base fee plus a percentage of revenue. Fees collected would be credited to the revolving fund. The VEIA also provides flexibility in the solicitation process. For example, the 1998 Act requires the NPS to consider specific evaluation factors, while the VEIA does not dictate any specific evaluation factors. This flexibility may allow businesses to more effectively respond to and be evaluated on how they will meet visitor needs for the services being offered. The flexibility of the VEIA also provides the potential to streamline the solicitation process to reduce the burden on businesses submitting proposals, including the ability to negotiate on the terms of the contract and greater ability to modify or adjust operations under existing contracts to reflect changes at the System unit or different visitor expectations during the contract term. In addition to commercial services contracts, the VEIA authorizes the NPS to enter into professional services contracts related to those commercial services contracts. These may include consulting contracts with hospitality and asset management experts for services such as developing requests for proposals, condition assessments, and operational and financial analysis. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Implementation of the VEIA</HD> The Centennial Act requires the NPS to promulgate regulations appropriate for implementation of the VEIA. 54 U.S.C. 101936. The Centennial Act also states that the VEIA expires seven years after the enactment of the law. 54 U.S.C. 101938. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (Pub. L. 117-328) extended the expiration of the VEIA by an additional two years until December 16, 2025. The NPS has consulted with hospitality industry experts, including academic leaders, hospitality asset management companies, hotel owners and operators, and State agencies to assess current visitor service contract models and best practices in the hospitality industry. The NPS engaged a nationally recognized hospitality management consulting and asset management firm to assist the NPS with developing contracts, requests for qualifications and proposals, and solicitation, contract management, and accounting practices. The NPS has evaluated certain visitor services currently provided under concession contracts that may be suitable for commercial services contracts under the VEIA. The NPS used various criteria during this evaluation, including: • Whether the services may be authorized under a commercial services contract under the VEIA ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> they may not be for the provision of outfitter and guide services, or for the provision of ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 80k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━