Smoky Mountains Getting More Visitors

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is running more than 11% ahead of 2011 visits for the first half of this year.
Park officials said Wednesday that June visitation was up 7.2% – a total of 1,202,056 visitors to the 500,000-acre park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. The year-to-date figure is up 11.5% over the first six months of 2011. That means an additional 410,767 people have come into the park this year.
A Smokies spokeswoman said the park is also 3.6% ahead of the 5-year average for park visits.