TRAVEL INSIDER : ‘New Look’ Yosemite May Not Change Much : Management: Curry Co. turns over park visitor services to a new company this fall, but don’t expect telephone reservation lines to be any less jammed.

This October, after 94 years, the job of running this national park’s hotels, restaurants, general store and related services is scheduled to pass from Yosemite Park & Curry Co. into the hands of a new concessionaire. The good news in this for park visitors, Curry officials say, is that tourists “won’t really notice much of a change.”

Some people, however, might argue that that’s bad news.

In its efforts to feed, house and generally entertain the park’s 3.9 million visitors a year, Curry Co. has, perhaps inevitably, made both friends and enemies.

First the friends: In a 1990-91 survey of park visitors by Texas A&M; University, more than 92% of those who drove in rated their trips very good , excellent or perfect . More than 68% said they were pleased with the park’s visitor services. (The 34.1% who expressed dissatisfaction most often cited the cost, quality and availability of food and gasoline in the park.)

Those happy campers will be reassured by the fact that the park’s well-known services, such as the Ahwahnee and Wawona hotels, will continue uninterrupted. In addition, at least in the short term, most Curry Co. workers expect to be retained under the new regime.

For those unsatisfied by the way the park runs now--and for those who are simply curious about the future beyond this fall--the prospect of a new park concessionaire raises all sorts of hopes and fears: Will Curry Co.’s lame-duck status lead it to scrimp this summer on spending for maintenance and facility improvements? Will the phone number for park lodging reservations remain logjammed with busy signals? Will the number of rentable rooms in the park increase or decrease?

For those most familiar with life in the park, the questions can be even more pointed. For instance: Is the high arrest rate of concessionaire employees likely to continue?

Here, drawn from conversations with various U.S. Park Service and Curry Co. officials, are some informed forecasts:

Maintenance and improvements: Curry officials decline to give specifics on their capital spending in recent years, and have already agreed to sell the company’s physical assets in the park. But spokesman Keith Walklet says the company’s efforts to maintain and improve facilities continue at “the same pace as in previous years.” Among their many chores in recent weeks, Walklet notes, Curry workers have been upgrading an amphitheater near Yosemite Lodge and refurbishing public restrooms. In April, the company took delivery of an electric delivery truck to replace a gas-burning vehicle--Curry’s third such acquisition since 1991.

Park Service employees, too, affirm that maintenance seems to be continuing as usual. “They’re not just letting things run down,” says Park Service ranger and spokeswoman Kris Fister.

The lodging reservation line: The Ahwahnee and Wawona hotels, the Yosemite, Tuolomne Meadows and White Wolf lodges and Curry Village Housekeeping Camp all take their reservations through a single phone number: (209) 252-4848. (Operators normally answer 8 a.m.-5 p.m., seven days a week, but will begin an hour earlier this summer, starting May 3.) The lodging line is busy so much of the time that phone company operators are weary of hearing complaints from exasperated callers.

Yet no change is expected. The problem, says Curry spokesman Keith Walklet, is simple volume. So enormous is demand for the park’s roughly 1,740 lodging units, he says, that neither the company’s automated phone system nor its large corps of reservationists can keep the lines clear.

About 10 years ago, he says, the company tried to institute a free 800 number, became even more swamped, and abandoned the idea. Now, Walklet claims, Curry employs four times as many phone reservationists as would be found in a hotel operation with a comparable number of rooms. He says the company--and probably its successor--can’t do much more than urge visitors to call during less busy hours.

Some tips: The most calls come in on weekdays at lunchtime. Volume is lightest on Saturdays and Sundays. The park’s hotels start accepting bookings 366 days before the date to be reserved. (Thus today, May 9, is the first day one could book a reservation for May 10, 1994. And, rest assured, many are doing just that.) Summertime and holiday dates often sell out--every room in the park--within 30 minutes.

Number of lodging units: The park’s long-term concession plan calls for reducing the number of lodgings to 1,472 rooms--a 15% cut. But the timetable is uncertain; the new concessionaire may not be in a hurry to reduce room revenues, and some park workers say it could conceivably be 15 years until that reduction happens. At the moment, rates range from $208 for a night at the Ahwahnee to $33 for a tent cabin with restrooms and showers a short walk away. The goal, the Park Service’s Fister says, is to reduce the number of canvas tent cabins in Curry Village from 426 to 150. Those tent cabins in Curry Village are not particularly pretty, but they are usually the most available, and among the cheapest accommodations.

Crime and the concessionaire: No, Yosemite is not a den of lawlessness. Among 3.9 million visitors and hundreds of workers, one homicide and six rapes were reported last year. But at the park’s Visitor Protection Division, which serves as Yosemite’s law enforcement agency, officials have been worrying for years about crime among Curry employees.

Relying on many seasonal workers who accept modest wages and usually have to share rustic accommodations with roommates, Curry maintains a work force of about 900 in winter, 2,000 in summer. Considering the size of each group, those workers find themselves in legal trouble far more frequently than either the general public or the U.S. Park Service’s Yosemite work force of about 350 in winter and 735 in summer.

Among 846 arrests made for various offenses in the park in 1992, Park Service records show, 645 were Yosemite visitors. Five were Park Service employees. And 201 were Curry Co. employees. Half or more of those Curry arrests were for driving while intoxicated or public drunkenness, reports Park Service community relations specialist Ron Hamann. The numbers have been similar for several years.

In 1991: 537 visitor arrests, eight Park Service arrests, 249 Curry Co. arrests.

In 1990: 503 visitor arrests, nine Park Service arrests, 54 Curry Co. arrests.

“What we have is a railroad track situation--Park Service on one side of the tracks and the Curry Company on the other,” says Hamann, referring to the relative attractiveness of Curry Co. housing vis-a-vis more upscale Park Service lodgings. He is quick to add that “we’re working together” on the problem with Curry officials. Programs to improve communication among employees and heighten the park residents’ sense of community have recently begun.

But both Hamann and Curry spokesman Walklet say that no matter who the concessionaire is, many of the park workers are unlikely to see much difference in their circumstances. As a result, says Hamann, “I don’t foresee any big changes (in worker habits) . . . . We’re dealing with the human condition.”

The old boss, the new boss, the paperwork: Curry Co. started as a family business and was later purchased by the giant entertainment company MCA Inc. When the Japanese firm Matsushita Electric Corp. gained control of MCA in 1990, Bush Administration officials complained about the idea of a foreign firm holding a national park concession, and MCA agreed to sell off Curry Co. when the park concession contract expires this year.

Unless the Clinton Administration steps in to object, the Curry Co. role will be assumed by the Buffalo, N.Y.-based conglomerate Delaware North Cos. Delaware North, which runs hotels in Australia and sells concession food at scores of American baseball stadiums, race tracks and airports, has no experience in national park operations. Last December, the conglomerate won the Department of the Interior’s favor in a six-company bidding battle for the Yosemite contract.

Environmental groups have questioned Delaware North’s credentials, but others have praised the proposed pact, which will give the Park Service far more revenue that does the existing 30-year Curry contract. Under the new 15-year pact, the Park Service is to get 20% of the gross receipts from the concessionaire’s Yosemite operations. (The Curry contract, by contrast, gave the Park Service just 3/4 of 1%.)

The new contract, which is to take effect Oct. 1, awaits approval by Congress.