As the various national parks jurisdictions in Australia wrestle with the multiple challenges thrown up by the transition to online campsite booking systems – like ‘ghost campsites’, and loss of camping spontaneity – several authorities in the US are already taking concrete actions to address the issue.
As the Grey Nomads has previously reported, a few state legislatures in America are looking to pass new laws to combat the high number of late cancellations and no-shows. In California, that legislation – known as AB 618 – has just been referred to the Committee on Appropriations with a unanimous recommendation to approve.
Keith Cialino, the Principal Consultant with the Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee of the California State Legislature told the GNT the existing reservation system had sparked many complaints.
Camping has become extremely popular in both the US and in Australia PIC: Pexels
And while California’s campsite problems are similar to Australia’s in regards to empty campsites in ‘booked-out’ parks, it seems ‘setting up’ supervision is significantly more widespread over there.
“State Parks staff do a great job of marking individual campsites as reserved, and they (or a volunteer camp host) are usually on site at each campground to resolve issues,” Mr Cialino said. “Most, but not all, campgrounds require campers to check-in at a kiosk, so that prevents those without reservations from potentially setting up in a camp that appears empty.”
AB 618 envisions several tiers of incentives for campers to cancel a reservation early in order to reduce the number of no-shows. The legislation is also looking at banning repeat no-show offenders from using the booking system again.
“The bill currently says that after three no-shows in a calendar year, that user would be prevented from making new reservations,” Mr Cialino said.
He told the Grey Nomads there was an awareness that camping spontaneity was being lost.
“For the most popular campsites, we think the current online reservation process can actually be a barrier,” he said. “Not everyone has the time or ability to be online at 8am six months before you want to go camping, and not everyone plans their camping trips six months in advance.”
Mr Cialino said it might be a good idea to allow a certain percentage of all campsites to be kept free for ‘casual’ visitors rather than those who booked in advance.
Ultimately though, in the US as in Australia, the fundamental problem is the same … camping is becoming too popular for its own good!
• Should more be done to sort out the ‘imperfections’ in Australia’s online campsite booking system? Comment below.
