It’s now easier than ever to reserve a campsite at any of San Juan County’s three overnight camping parks.
And that could be a big reason why the Parks department is well-poised to outpace last year’s attendance marks before the rainy season arrives.
“We’re having a pretty fabulous year at our camping parks,” county Administrator Pete Rose told the County Council on Tuesday.
Rose credits a new online reservation system for putting Parks on course to outpace last year’s attendance mark and for helping the department to meet, or perhaps exceed, the amount of revenue it’s expected to collect by the end of the year. He said the department has logged 6,624 “bed nights” at its three camping parks combined, and to date has received 91 percent of the revenue it’s forecasted to collect from camping fees – roughly $266,000 – by the end of December.
In addition, he noted that the three camping parks, as a unit, have drawn visitors from 37 states, three provinces and three different countries so far this year.
According to Kathryn Hansen, Parks’ veteran administrative assistant, the numbers seem to show the reservation system, which debuted in March, has been well received. She said the department this year has already received more income from fees-for-service at the three county campgrounds, Lopez, San Juan and Shaw, than it did at each in all of 2009.
Hansen said one of the best features of the new online system is that it allows prospective campers to see when an individual campsite is spoken for, on any given month, and then adjust their reservations accordingly.
“It’s made it easier to make a reservation and it’s more visual in allowing people to see where there’s gaps on the calendar,” she said. “It has better user flexibility.”
Meanwhile, Rose noted Parks recently received a $3,000 boost to its bottom line thanks to a grant from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The grant is intended to help the department offset the expense of maintaining its day-use park at Lopez Island’s Agate Beach, which borders the state park at Iceberg Point and is used regularly by those who visit both.
