The lodge, the restaurant and the raft trip inside an American national park are almost never run by the government. They are operated by private companies under federal concession contracts.
The arrangement predates the agency
Early parks were served by railroads and private hoteliers before a park service existed, and those operations were absorbed rather than replaced when federal management arrived.
The logic that kept them is straightforward. Running hotels is a specialized business, and a land management agency has little reason to become a hospitality company.
What the agency retained was control over what may be built, where, and at what price the public is charged.
Contracts are competed and time-limited
Concessions are awarded for fixed terms following a public solicitation, with proposals evaluated on visitor experience, environmental performance and the franchise fee offered.
Fees go to the government, with much of the money returned to park operations. The concessioner's revenue comes from visitors, not from appropriations.
Because contracts expire, operators face pressure to invest cautiously near the end of a term, which is visible in the condition of some facilities.
Leasehold surrender interest complicates transitions
When a concessioner builds or substantially improves a facility on federal land, it accrues a claim to be compensated for that investment when the contract ends.
An incoming operator must buy out that interest, which can be large enough to deter competitors and effectively narrow the field of bidders.
This is a recurring criticism of the system, since it can turn a supposedly competitive process into one with a single realistic candidate.
Rates are approved, not set freely
Concessioners cannot price at whatever a captive market will bear. Rates require agency approval, generally benchmarked against comparable services outside the park.
Comparability is doing a lot of work in that sentence, since a room with no alternative within an hour's drive is not really comparable to a highway motel.
Approval nevertheless constrains the ceiling, and it is why in-park lodging is expensive but not priced like a monopoly good.
Staffing shapes the visitor experience
Seasonal operations in remote locations require importing a workforce and housing it, and that housing is frequently the binding constraint on how much service can be offered.
When beds for employees are scarce, restaurants shorten hours and shuttle services thin out regardless of how many visitors are present.
Visitors read reduced service as budget cuts at the park. More often it reflects a concessioner unable to house the staff it wanted to hire.