With the rising cost of visiting – and camping in – our national parks coming in for heavy criticism, many grey nomads are calling for new fee structures to be put in place.
But it might be a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’.
Currently, the availability of long-term passes significantly cuts the cost for heavy and regular users of national parks in the various states and territories. However, looking overseas, there are signs that the ‘user pays’ philosophy could be spreading to national parks. In Canada, the Tourism Industry Association of Prince Edward Island (TAIPEI) has suggested that Parks Canada replace its flat fee for visiting national parks with a fee based on length of stay.
The organisation would like to see a ‘public car park’ type set-up whereby people pay when they leave the park. The amount owing would depend on how long they spent there. A similar move here would certainly leave some grey nomads -who might spend 50% or more of their time in national parks – feeling the squeeze.
The Canadian tourism body’s argument is that by posting a fee schedule at the gate and allowing people to enter without paying upfront, the park is giving visitors the choice of staying as long as they want, and only paying for that length of stay. TAIPEI’s executive director, Don Cudmore, says the current fee policy is inflexible and doesn’t accommodate the unique needs of visitors. For example, Mr Cudmore says a family of four may pay $20 to get into a park and have to leave 45 minutes later if a child gets sick. Other visitors may want to go for a short swim on a sunny afternoon and then move on.
TAIPEI says the suggested changes would also help persuade other short-term visitors who currently turn around at the gate after being frightened off by the day charges to actually enter the park. The counter argument, of course, would be that while visitor numbers ‘may’ climb, the quality of the experience wouldn’t. Certainly, the pressure would be on to knock over that 15km bush walk in double quick time and get back to the car before getting charged an extra $5! And there certainly wouldn’t be time to take a series of photos at the lookout or, heaven forbid, stop for a water break. Hmmmm!
What do you think of the Canadian parks price proposal? How – if at all – would you like to see our national parks fee structure changed? Comment below.
If fees keep going up, it’s only a matter of time before pensioners like myself won’t be able to afford to travel Oz. Free camping is our only option. “You’re a pensioner? Sorry, mate. Get yourself a little flat somewhere and spend the rest of your life watching television.”
its true we pay taxes all our lives we deserve a bit of free camping we earnt our pension card .why should we be stuck in a unit we.did our job we deserve the rights, to stop were we like we pay rego dont we ,garn
State parks in NSW are very expensive, in many cases more so than nearby caravan parks which supply extras like showers and electricity. I do think there should be a discount in any new fee structure which takes into account a “longer” stay.
Once there was a time where national parks were funded by general taxation….now, perhaps due to poor money management by state governments, we seem resigned to accept the ‘doubly whammy’ of paying again at the gate. The arguement might be that if we want the fancy facilities such as flushing dunnies, electric bbq’s and engineered walking tracks we have to be prepared to pay…mind you, I dont recall my opinion on any of this being sought.