May the Director amend a concession contract to provide new or additional visitor services or grant a concessioner a preferential right to provide new or additional visitor services?
36 C.F.R. § 51.76
in effectEffective: 2024-07-01(a) The Director may provide for new or additional services under the annual operating plan of the concessioner or through a contract amendment, as appropriate, where the Director determines the new or additional services are necessary and appropriate for public use and enjoyment of the park area in which they are located. New or additional services must be consistent to the highest practicable degree with the preservation and conservation of the resources and values of the park area. Such new or additional services shall not represent a material change to the required and authorized services as set forth in the applicable prospectus or contract. Changes may include, but are not limited to, extensions of seasons, operating hours and increases in capacity limitations.
(b) When considering whether to amend the applicable terms of an existing concession contract to provide new or additional services, the Director should consider the benefit to the visitor experience where other concessioners or holders of commercial use authorizations in the same park area already provide those services.
(c) A concessioner that is allocated park area entrance, user days or similar resource use allocations for the purposes of a concession contract will not obtain any contractual or other rights to continuation of a particular allocation level pursuant to the terms of a concession contract or otherwise. Such allocations will be made, withdrawn and/or adjusted by the Director from time to time in furtherance of the purposes of this part.
Source: eCFRURL: https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2024-07-01/title-36.xmlFetched: 7/26/2026