While many grey nomads remain far convinced about the merits of online booking for national parks, the South Australian authorities are hailing the system as a major reason for a spike in camper numbers.
The Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (DEWNR) says that since being implemented 12 months ago, online booking had helped improve the safety of visitors in national parks and the placement of campground hosts.
“One of the really big benefits to the new system is that we have the contact details and location of everyone who is visiting or camping in the parks; having those details helps if there is an emergency because we can send out a message or a ranger into the areas being used to support guests,” said DEWNR parks and tourism manager, Chris Thomas. “It also tells us what campgrounds are being used the most so we can get any campground hosts in the right spot.”
He said the system also made it easier for park rangers to see where people were camping so they knew where to patrol. DEWNR argues that the fact that more booking agents are being established is helping visitors in areas which have no phone signal and those without access to internet.
Mr Thomas told the West Coast Sentinel newspaper that department, the South Australian Tourism Commission and regional tourism organisations had all worked hard together to attract more visitors to national parks.
“Coffin Bay and Lincoln national parks were very busy and in fact those two parks had the busiest season on record,” he said.
More than 4200 people camped in and visited the Lincoln and Coffin Bay parks from late December to early January. In the Lincoln National Park 900 camping nights were booked in, with 750 booked in at Coffin Bay.
However, the West Coast region did not see as much of an increase over the holiday period. There were 86 people camping across 27 nights at the Gawler Ranges National Park and 27 nights camped at the Fowlers Bay Conservation Park.
* How do you feel about the online booking system for national parks? Comment below.
Fine if you know exactly which day you are going to arrive! Hopefully there is internet service whilst driving there and prior to arriving.
We don’t book anywhere. We turn up and if they don’t have room we move on. That’s being a nomad.
We don’t book ahead for any sort of overnighting so if we can’t book when we get there because there is no phone service, then there is always a good free spot just down the road somewhere.
We don’t book ahead because we like to check out the site and also see if it is suitable for our van, we get to some of these parks which have no internet coverage and can’t stay.
I’m still reeling about the loss of the camping parks pass. Individual site/ night pricing makes it untenable for me. We were looking forward to staying in SA parks but will spend time elsewhere like the free forest parks in Vic. It’s a thumbs down for us.
Totally agree with all the posts, booking is only ok if you have visited the area before & know that you want to stay.
Our local NP beach camp is always booked out in holiday periods by regular campers.
Do you really want to go where all the crowds go or do want a cheaper or free camp and quieter place in the country ? Or on a remote beach fishing ? I know what our choice is