Visitation Up At Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Visits to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are up by nearly 8% over last year for the year to date. A park spokeswoman said November visits to the 500,000-acre park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border totaled 657,935 people. That was up 8.6% from November 2011. After revising October’s figures, which were slightly ahead of the same month last year, year-to-date visits to the Smokies through November totaled 9,204,736 people. That’s up 7.8% from January through November 2011. October is a big month for visits because of the fall foliage. The revised figure for that month is 1,133,604.