Visitors welcome free tours at Mammoth Cave(MAMMOTH CAVE NATIONAL PARK – June 24, 2009) On June 20-21, Mammoth CaveNP offered the Discovery and Mammoth Passage cave tours free of charge.The offer will be repeated July 18-19, and August 15-16, 2009 as a gestureby the National Park Service to help families enjoy the outdoors.“We consider the weekend a great success,” said Superintendent PatrickReed. “The purpose was to give families a break in these tough economictimes. Some came out specifically because of the free tours, others whowere already here added a free tour to their visit. Both Saturday andSunday showed significant increases over the number of people who visitedon the same weekend last year.”On Saturday and Sunday (June 20-21), 7,151 people toured Mammoth Cave,compared to 5,157 people on the same weekend in 2008, a 28 percentincrease. The park ran the self-guided Discovery tour through the busiestpart of the day, and then added extra Mammoth Passage tours to ensure allvisitors would have an opportunity to go on one of the free tours.“One woman told us the tours added to a cheap summer get-a-way she plannedfor her grandchildren,” said Mike Adams, Mammoth Cave’s chief ofinterpretation. “She said they came to this area to use discounted ticketsat one attraction, then came to Mammoth Cave for the free tours. We hopeothers will follow her example when we offer the free tours again July18-19 and August 15-16.” - NPS -