The National Park Service has released a prospectus soliciting proposals from businesses interested in providing guided, interpretive over-snow vehicle tours of Yellowstone National Park.
A total of 23 new contracts will be awarded and put into place for the 2014-2015 winter season, according to a statement released by the park’s public affairs office. They will take the place of 13 concession contracts for guided interpretive snow coach tours and 21 commercial use authorizations (CUA) for guided interpretive snowmobile tours currently in place in Yellowstone. The current concession contracts expire on April 1, 2014. The current CUAs expire on June 20, 2014.
The contract term will be ten years. Proposals will be due January 27, 2014. The NPS anticipates announcing the selection of the successful offerors in April 2014.
The prospectus implements the NPS’ October 2013 Final Rule for Winter Use by requiring concessioners to provide tours as transportation events. The rule replaces the former concept of a fixed maximum number of oversnow vehicles allowed in the park each day with a new, more flexible concept of transportation events. Concessioners will be able to use their allocated number of transportation events for snowmobiles, snowcoaches, or a mix of both. Because of this change to transportation events as the required service, no offerors will have a right of preference to new contracts.
An electronic copy of the prospectus and additional information are available online at http://concessions.nps.gov/yell5xx-14.htm.