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Speaker 1: Good news for our dock sites. This morning. More than

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Speaker 1: six hundred thousand beds were being booked at dock huts,

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Speaker 1: campsites and great walks over the summer, bringing in more

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Speaker 1: than thirteen million bucks. DOC says sixty percent of those

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Speaker 1: walk the tracks were domestic travelers. That's up twelve percent

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Speaker 1: on the summer before. Meghan Demos aantos as president of

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Speaker 1: the Federated Mountain Clubs joining me this morning. Hi, Meghan,

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Speaker 1: sure to Ryan, good to have you on the show.

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Speaker 1: So is this just because we've got more key we

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Speaker 1: was doing it or fewer you know, foreign tourists here.

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Speaker 1: What's the situation?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think you may have also noticed that DOC

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Speaker 2: said that they were back to ninety three percent of

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Speaker 2: their pre COVID level. So I don't think it's because

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Speaker 2: there's there's less international tourists here that I guess. We

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Speaker 2: live in such a beautiful country, so why not get

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Speaker 2: out in it? But yeah, I guess there's probably a

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Speaker 2: couple of reasons. And I think the ease of getting

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Speaker 2: information to start out in the grade outdoors is is

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Speaker 2: relatively easy. You know, there's relatively low barriers to entry,

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Speaker 2: and I think I think that's that's one of the

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Speaker 2: main reasons why we're seeing more and more people pick

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Speaker 2: it up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting this report says that fifty percent of

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Speaker 1: foreigners who come here ahead to a national park, which

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Speaker 1: is great, and also that the tourism on public conservation

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Speaker 1: land is actually worth three and a half billion dollars

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Speaker 1: a year.

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Speaker 2: I know, wouldn't it be great to see more a

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Speaker 2: figure more commensurate to that come through in the budget

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Speaker 2: for DOC as well. Well.

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Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, do you think we're

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Speaker 1: charging enough for the dock huts, the nightly stay. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we would probably need to subsidize people who couldn't afford it,

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Speaker 1: But do you think if they're always full or near full,

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Speaker 1: do we charge more so that we can fix the tracks?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, it's an interesting debate to have, and like

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Speaker 2: you mentioned, it's really important that we don't that we

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Speaker 2: don't price people out of their own backyard. I think

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Speaker 2: that probably a question that that should also be asked

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Speaker 2: is whether potentially dock providing an opportunity that's a little

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Speaker 2: bit too elaborate as well. You know, I think that

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Speaker 2: toning down their service standards would be the equivalent to

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Speaker 2: charging more and people would still have a great experience.

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Speaker 1: What what do you mean, get rid of the toilet paper?

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Speaker 2: No, not real. I mean I mean I think things

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Speaker 2: like you know, if you if you look at the

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Speaker 2: cost of when of of of the build of great

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Speaker 2: wall cuts and tracks, and they have really hyper kilometer

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Speaker 2: cost compared to other types of tracks, but also things

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Speaker 2: like providing gas and huts, which costs a lot of

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Speaker 2: money because you have to fid in providing split firewood.

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Speaker 2: You know, potentially they could look at providing rounds that

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Speaker 2: people split on site themselves, which is all part of

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Speaker 2: the experiences then in the back country. So I think

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Speaker 2: that there's a few ways that the department could avoid

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Speaker 2: having to keep increasing prices.

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Speaker 1: Interesting, Meghan, that's a really I hadn't thought of that before.

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Speaker 1: But there is always cut firewood, isn't there, And often

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Speaker 1: if it's a busy hart, there's gas. That is Meghan Demosantos,

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Speaker 1: the president of Federated Mountain Clubs, talking about those numbers

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Speaker 1: of dock huts, how would you feel turning up and

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Speaker 1: having to cut your own firewood? I mean you couldn't

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Speaker 1: do it in some conditions obviously.

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Speaker 2: For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live

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Speaker 2: to news talks it'd be from five am weekdays, or

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