For decades, from at least 1990 through 2015, things didn’t change much at Acadia National Park.
With the exception of the creation of a scientific research and education center at a former Navy base at Schoodic Point, the park didn’t add any new facilities during that period, and each year had between 2 million and 2.8 million visits.
But over the past decade, the annual number of estimated visits to Acadia has ballooned to around 4 million, leading to more seasonal congestion on roads around Mount Desert Island and raising concerns from some MDI residents and other Mainers about overcrowding.
Some of the factors that have contributed to that increase were set in motion before the park’s yearly visits count surpassed 3 million in 2016. But other factors such as global tourism trends — some of which were fueled by the COVID pandemic — and the explosion of the weekly vacation home rental business have pushed the park’s visitation levels even higher, and are not expected to decline anytime soon.
The jump in visits to Acadia comes at a time when fewer Canadians are visiting Maine and the threat of steep tariffs on imports has created economic uncertainty. But the increase is part of a national trend, according to Maureen Terry, spokesperson for the Maine Office of Tourism.
“Visiting national parks is ‘hot’ now,” Terry said. “In 2024, the National Park Service had a record year with more than 330 million visits. Parks, overall, are a bucket list item.”
Acadia National Park was created in 1916 and, according to its annual estimates, saw its number of annual visits grow over the decades from tens of thousands into the millions.
Precisely how many visits Acadia received each year prior to 1990 is unclear, as that year the National Park Service adopted a new formula for counting it. The service concluded the prior methodology was overestimating how many people came and went, Acadia officials have said. In 1989, using its now-discarded formula, NPS estimated Acadia had 5.4 million visits, but officials now say they don’t think that figure is accurate.
Using its new formula, park officials estimated that Acadia had 2.3 million visits in 1990 — a difference of 3.1 million visits from its estimate the prior year. Over the next 15 years, Bar Harbor’s tourism industry expanded, allowing the number of people who could make overnight trips to visit Acadia to grow.
Large hotels such as West Street Hotel, the Bar Harbor Grand Hotel and Acadia Inn all have been built in Bar Harbor since 1995, on properties that previously were not being used for lodging. In the late 1990s, the free Island Explorer bus system was introduced on the island, making it easier for both workers and tourists alike to travel into the downtown village, where parking is at a premium in summer months.
The demographics of the tourism industry workforce also have changed, with much of it now imported through foreign worker visas, allowing the industry to grow beyond levels that were supported solely by local resident workers who typically had to secure their own housing and transportation to their jobs. Now, because of a shortage of affordable housing, many seasonal workers on MDI have employer-provided housing and use the Island Explorer system to get to and from work.
In the 2010s, Acadia drew attention from outside Maine for varying reasons. Then-President Barack Obama and his family made a high-profile visit in 2010 and, three years later, the park shut down for more than two weeks in October, along with the rest of the federal government, over a congressional budget impasse. Unlike other shutdowns before or since, the 2013 closure came at a time of year when Acadia was still relatively busy with tourists, though its overall impact on visits that year was relatively low.
Then, in 2016, the 100th anniversary of Acadia and the National Park Service again boosted interest in Acadia and other national parks in the U.S. That year, Acadia’s visits topped 3.3 million and, with the exception of the COVID year of 2020, have remained well above that total.
Since COVID, visitation has climbed even higher, topping 4 million in 2021 and hovering around 3.9 million each year since. Warmer and drier weather, which experts say is a result of climate change, has been cited frequently by both Acadia and local business officials as a factor in Acadia’s growing crowds, including its highest-ever monthly total just last month.
This increase coincides with a global phenomenon called overtourism, in which some critics say the number of visitors in a particular place exceeds what that host community can comfortably accommodate. The tide of tourists has been met with squirt gun protests in European cities, government scrutiny in Japan and complaints about cruise ships in Maine and Alaska.
Those who object to the throngs of tourists say the proliferation of housing units dedicated to vacation rentals puts the cost of housing out of reach and that crowds overwhelm local resources and infrastructure, making the experience unpleasant for residents and tourists alike.
In Bar Harbor, the debate over the increase in tourism has not only resulted in strict limits on cruise ships and tighter restrictions on vacation rentals, but has prompted town officials to enact a temporary ban on new commercial lodging development — over the objections of the local tourism industry — saying it will allow the town to assess what kind of impact the jump in tourism is having on local resources and residents.
Other, more removed parts of Acadia also are seeing a faster increase in visitation, which some experts say reflects a growing interest in rural tourism that has been fueled by the increased availability of short-term vacation rental homes in more isolated areas.
The Schoodic section of Acadia, on the east side of Frenchman Bay, is on pace to have its busiest year ever. The Acadia parcel on the island of Isle Au Haut, which has only 60 or so year-round residents and is accessible only by a 45-minute ferry ride from Stonington, could surpass 9,000 visits for the fifth year in a row — though the park has taken steps to minimize the impact of visitation there on the tiny island town.
