Skywalk gets mixed reception
Tourists flock to canyon SkywalkArizona attraction overcomes rocky startDespite early reviews that knocked it for being too expensive and hard to reach, the Grand Canyon Skywalk drew more than 50,000 visitors in its first full month of operation.
The Hualapai Indian Tribe, which owns the glass-bottomed walkway 120 miles east of Las Vegas, reported approximately 55,000 paying visitors in April. During the same month last year, 14,000 tourists visited the reservation.
The increased volume has prompted the tribe to hire 140 people, nearly doubling the staff for its burgeoning tourist destination at the canyon's west rim.
"It's been wild," said Sheri Yellowhawk, a former Hualapai council member who now serves as CEO for the tribal-owned Grand Canyon Resort Corp.
April 4, 2007: Grand Canyon SkywalkThe whole experience was quite disappointing. While the views were spectacular, the cost was just far too high, especially because they were not clearly advertised anywhere. $25 might have been worth it, $75 was far too high. Additionally, none of the infrastructure was able to support the number of visitors and all of the buildings in the advertisements are not built yet. We spent most of our time waiting in line, a lot of it out in the cold, even avoiding the one really long line. My suggestion is to wait until they at least have the buildings built and hopefully have realized that most people do not want to pay that much for that little.
3 comments:
Writerfella here --
One matter the Hualapai did not consider is the ever-spiraling price of gasoline and thus remote off-road destinations are going to suffer. So what if the initial period seemingly was well-attended; that likely was due to riding the cusp of opening publicity and/or news coverages. When that fades, not even Mark Hamill likely will be able to afford to attend. Recommendation: it could be useful as the most unusual bowling alley ever constructed!
All Best
Russ bates
'writerfella'
Dear Mr. Schmidt: Thanks for your post on the Skywalk. People definitely should know what they're getting into before they commit to going to that area. If interested, here's a link video that tries to achieve that aim...
http://grandcanyon.com/grand-canyon-skywalk.html
Thanks for the video link. I'd say anyone interested in the Skywalk or planning to visit it should watch this video. It's quite informative, with only a brief sales pitch at the seven-minute mark.
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