Cheyenne, Wyo. (AP) – The deaths of six and possibly seven, foreign citizens in a fiery minibus crash in East Aidaho are a reminder that visitors throwing themselves to the national parks of Yellowstone and Grand Tetan from all over the world, are traveling on the stages and the hedges of the region of the region of the region of the region. As dangerous as the bodies of the region and move with hot hot pools that can be as dangerous as the errors of the region and move with hot hot pools that can be as dangerous as the grizzly of the region and move with hot hot pools.
The van was confronted with a pickup on Thursday on a highway west of Yellowstone. Both vehicles were lit and survivors were taken to hospitals with injuries, according to police. The tourists killed are from Italy and China, employees said.
From where the van came from and it was going and it was not known. Some roads in Yellowstone, including the one south of the old faithful – the most famous geyser of the park – were still closed after the snowy winter.
The highway, where the incident happened south of Western Yellowstone, Montana, offers a way to get between Yellowstone and Grand Teton at this time of year before it was plowed for the summer of the route north-south and the park is fully opened for the summer.
National Parks, including the first in the world, Yellowstone, attracts visitors from Worldwide
According to the latest data from the International Commercial Administration, 36% of international visitors arrived in the United States through air visits to national parks and national monuments such as their best free time activity while in the US
Seventeen percent of Yellowstone visitors came from other countries in 2016, according to a survey of use of visitors to the park with the smallest exhaustive data available.
Visitors from Europe and Asia represent a larger part of travelers outside the United States, with 34% of China, 11% of Italy and 10% from Canada.
The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed these numbers, said Brian Riley, whose business based on Weoming, Old Hand Holdings, offers on the market the Yellowstone region in China and runs tours.
“Every Chinese is learning how big Yellowstone is in their primary school,” Riley said on Friday.
The pandemic has put a sharp brake of tourism of all kinds, but especially from China that has not yet recovered, Riley noted. Now visits to people who already live in the American are reporting most Chinese visits, he said.
“Overall, foreigners do not feel safe here as before,” Riley said on Friday. “The Chinese see this behind the scenes.”
The American tourism industry was expecting 2025 to be another good year for foreign visitors. But a few months later, international arrivals decreased. Enraged by the tariffs and rhetoric of President Donald Trump and anxious about reports of arrested tourists at the border, some citizens of other countries stay away from the United States and choose to travel elsewhere.
Riley, who grew up in Jackson, Wyoming, south of Grand Teton and lived in China for some time to learn Mandarin and why the Chinese wanted to visit the United States, is more focused to make them visit Hawaii, a country perceived as less dangerous.
International visitors are all ages
The crowd of Yellowstone Peak in the summer, but international tourism reaches a peak in the spring and autumn, according to the mayor of Riley and Western Yellowstone Jeff McBiri.
Many foreign visitors are the parents of international students at American colleges and universities.
“They are like,” Hey, let’s leave our child and go on vacation for a week. ” Or the completion of a child, let’s translate them through college and go on vacation, “said McBiri, who has a place for pizza in the city.” They really have a huge economic impact on this city. “
Yellowstone suffered two strokes between the pandemic and devastating floods in 2022, which cut access to parts of the park for months.
Tourism recovered with 4.7 million visitors last year, the second to Yellowstone.
“Legion” of deaths over the last century
Walking roads and natural distractions help to load many accidents in and around the park.
The first death, including a travel vehicle in Yellowstone, came just years after the park was fully motorized and a fleet of buses replaced the stage coaches and horses used for transportation in the early years of the park.
In 1921, a bus with 10 passengers started the road in the area of the park’s fishing bridge and down the embankment, killing a 38-year-old woman in Texas when her neck was broken, according to Park Lee Whitley historian.
Whitlisi in her book Death in Yellowstone. It chronicles the death in every way- from drowning in hot springs to carrying malls, crashes and killings of an airplane. Automatic deaths, writes Whitlisi, are a “legion” in the park, to the extent that they feel them too ordinary to get involved in his equal case of victims.
Another reporting of death in Yellowstone says at least 17 people have died in the park in crashes of motor vehicles since 2007, ranked by the second most common cause of death behind medical problems.
Whitlissi predicted the head of her book, covering the death of the road with a quote attributed to the Sotothsayer Mother of the 15th century Shipton: “Cares without horses will go, and incidents fill the world with a bitter.”
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.