Jackie Hai/KJZZ

Tourists at the Grand Canyon's South Rim.

The National Park Service reports visitors to the Grand Canyon brought about $1 billion to Arizona’s economy last year. But visitation is still not back up to pre-pandemic levels.

Last year, 4.7 million visitors came to Grand Canyon National Park. That’s an improvement from the previous year, but still nearly 30% below 2018 numbers.

“Grand Canyon National Park, pre-pandemic heavily relied on international visitors, so we haven’t quite seen the return of international visitation like we did pre-pandemic,” said Joelle Baird, park spokesperson.

So far in 2023, Baird said visitation numbers are down about 10% from last year. Baird said that’s in part because of heavy snow this winter.

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