The following is the statement issued to the Grey Nomads from the SA Department for Environment regarding online booking issues:
Visitor feedback motivated the drive to modernise payment systems in the small number of South Australia’s parks that collect fees. Park visitors told us that they wanted the convenience of booking and paying online, to be able to plan ahead and not have to carry the correct amount of cash to pay at the old “iron ranger” payment stands.
Those old cash payment stands were unfortunately often vandalised. This impacted on the revenue that we were able to use to conserve, manage and improve park visitor facilities such as toilets, trails and roads.
The system has supported record visitor numbers since it was introduced. It has been great to see the benefits of the system attracting more family groups to parks and assisting with behaviour management and responsible parks use.
We understand that it is not always possible to get mobile reception in remote areas and continue to recommend that visitors book before they go. Where that’s not possible we have a network of agents who can book for visitors in locations across the state and particularly in regional areas such as Quorn, Hawker, Maree, Mount Dare, Oodnadatta, Port Augusta, Broken Hill and Birdsville.
We continue to work to improve our service by updating our website at parks.sa.gov.au, making the fee structure more user-friendly and updating policies in response to visitor feedback. For example, we recently changed camping and entry fees so that visitors pay only one fee per night at checkout; and we’re improving the booking system so that visitors can more easily make changes to their bookings.
Visitor feedback is welcome at parks@sa.gov.au
