Aiming at the Bald Demographic

We stopped in Sequoia National Park at Wuksatchi Lodge, thinking that a night in a bed would have its advantages. (It didn't: overpriced, and air circulation through the lodge is absolutely horrible--definitely not worth it. We'd have been happier in our tent down at the Lodgepole campground.)

It was a different kind of place than I had imagined. I had thought it was a replacement for the hotel, cabins, and cafeteria that used to be at the Giants' Forest sequoia grove. But we found not trays and spaghetti-with-meat sauce but waiters and Mediterranean Pasta, Bifstek au Poivre, and Creme Brulee. We found not tube-frame camp beds and knotty pine walls but conference hotel modern.

The National Park Service's contractor appears to be looking for higher margin customers.

There was a card to hang on your door the night before if you wanted them to pack you a boxed lunch (four cheese, smoked turkey with provolone...). There is a picture on the back of the card: a happy family sitting on a sunlit rock high in the Sierra Nevada with a blue sky and high peaks behind them. The man: late forties and heavily balding. The woman: blond and mid-thirties. The child: five.

Marketing aimed at men with money to burn who started thinking seriously about family at age forty (or who started over on family at age forty).

Someone thinks that this is the prime demographic group the Wuksatchi Lodge should be chasing. Given the distribution of disposable income in America, they are probably right.

Comments

[harv]

Its said that if you want to find out if you will go bald as you age look at your mother's father. I'm lucky, my maternal grandfather had a full head of hair when he died of a stroke at 59.

[schnaze]

bravo...nice post

[Knut Wicksell]

The Parks are not our parents' parks, or even the parks of our youth. I've got 20 years on you, and I still like to backpack, but my wife won't go with me because she doesn't like to pee in the dark where she might run into snakes and lions and bears. So we stay in the upscale places. The real problem is that the scale in most parks isn't up enough for us. I'd rather do my own cooking and have it done right, but that's not always an option.

Moral: as long as your family is with you, stay in the tent. The air is better, you go to bed earlier on a better stomach, and you wake up when the air is sweet and peaceful.

Sounds like a great trip. Is the wilderness wired now?

[RSA]

Bifstek au Poivre? Quelle horreur--c'est "Biftek"! Quel philistin!

Just kidding. I've been in "lodges" like this, in African and Central America, in which the contrast between the amenities and the natural surroundings (not to mention the natural poverty) is so extreme as to be almost obscene. I like places better where there's at least the pretense (better yet, the reality) that I'm roughing it at least a little bit.

[piotr]

I thought it is typical for National Parks: 200 dollars for a room or 20 dollars or less for a tent site.

In some National Monuments you have only the second option (or RV) -- Natural Bridges in Utah or Chaco Canyon in NM. I hope it will stay that way.

[CLB]

"Conference hotel modern" room?! But the website says:

"Furnishings are deluxe and distinctive and feature an upscale, rustic décor of native granite rock, oak, cedar and hickory woods with the traditional forest colors of moss green, redwood and sand."

Of course, modernism and marketing have won when DeLong misspells Wuksachi as Wuksachti. The balding demographic marketing has put Saatchi on the mind.

[bostoniangirl]

And you blogged about it. Did you bring your lap top with you?

[BC]

More evidence (as if more were needed) of the disappearance of the American middle class. Time was (wasn't it?) when a family of 4, 5 or 6 might rumble up in their Ford station wagon to a non-carpeted lodge for some spaghetti and a good night's sleep, in preparation for a day experiencing astounding unspoiled natural beauty. Now it's only families of 3 in a Lexus SUV who go to natural parks, and they expect to be treated in the manner to which they've become accustomed. Familes of 5 in a Chevy minivan go to the mall so their kids can run around the food court. *sigh*

[sm]

These older guys with trophy wives are everywhere in advertising. And movies.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Middle class? We don't need no stinkin middle class!

(apologies for misusing a classic movie line)

Although I approve of diligence, blogging while on vacation may be a little over the top.

Professor, take a break, before you know it you will be living in an empty nest praying for grandchildren. Your children grow up much too fast.

By the way, speaking as a veteran Scout leader, some neosporin antibiotic oinment should be applied to the blisters as they heal. Next time, a coupld of pair of expensive socks will prevent most of the problem.

[Brad DeLong]

We're back now. I'm just transcribing things out of my notebook...

[a different chris]

>These older guys with trophy wives are everywhere in advertising. And movies.

I point them out to my wife every time she shows signs of getting uppity.

[SteveH]

On the East Coast near DC, where I am, the most reasonably priced vacations we can find are the State Parks in West Virginia. A family can get a cabin, with kitchen, for under $80 a night. Nothing fancy, but reasonable. If you can't get a cabin you can get rooms in a lodge for about the same cost. You're more likely to find spaghetti and meatballs on the menu than biftek. That's partly a West Coast thing. We don't have national parks as close that would be comparable to Yosemite.

[Lisa]

I well remember a first date with a 54 year old guy who asked me if I, fourteen years his junior, would be willing to take fertility drugs so that we could start that long-delayed family of his.

Good times.

[Kathleen]

More evidence (as if more were needed) of the disappearance of the American middle class. Time was (wasn't it?) when a family of 4, 5 or 6 might rumble up in their Ford station wagon to a non-carpeted lodge for some spaghetti and a good night's sleep, in preparation for a day experiencing astounding unspoiled natural beauty. Now it's only families of 3 in a Lexus SUV who go to natural parks, and they expect to be treated in the manner to which they've become accustomed. Familes of 5 in a Chevy minivan go to the mall so their kids can run around the food court.
so true. nice comment.

and nice post Prof.

[pulaski]

Welcome to the privatization of American public lands. One of the deals when Wuksachi was permitted was that the company would soon build lower-cost accomodation as well after they had made money on the higher-end stuff. No sign that that is ever going to happen. Camp 4 in yosemite holds on by a thread mainly because of history and some influential ex-climber backers.

And it isn't just parks. In the last five years or so, nearly every single US forest service campground in the Sierra has gone from being run by the forest service to being run by a private company. And as part of fee demo (no longer really a demonstration) you now have to pay to walk cross-country on land you own as a citizen to view a clear-cut. In my area, the new fees on BLM land cost much more to collect than they bring in, but they even had local support, because it would cut down on the numbers of Latinos using the riverside picnic areas. Its all a comodity now and those who can pay don't care. I don't know how folks even afford to car-camp in the parks at the current rates.

Thank congress and the ARC.