Camping opportunities at B.C. parks continues to grow

PENTICTON – B.C. Parks continues to improve its Discover Camping reservation system.

The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy announced some additional features to the reservation system following a final procurement process for a vendor to provide an enhanced Discover Camping reservation system in a press release issued earlier this week.

The new features include:

• notifications if previously booked sites become available at a certain park during a specific time.
• advanced search and availability display features that show availability in nearby parks if the first choice is full
• an option to sign up for additional B.C. Parks information such as newsletters and event notices
• add-on features to a reservation such as firewood, ice and park-related merchandise
• an option to purchase and send e-gifts to family and friends for use on the Discovery Camping system

US eDirect has been selected as the new Discover Camping vendor, as of the end of November.

Several years of wildfires haven’t affected reservations to B.C. provincial parks, with 155,000 reservations made through the service so far this year, up 15 per cent over last year.

Most of the reservations originate from within the province.

Myrah Baptiste, the operator of Sx ex ntk (Okanagan Falls) and Swiws (Haynes Point) provincial parks on behalf of the Osoyoos Indian Band, says reservations at the two parks are unchanged from last year, and for the most part at full capacity. She said the two parks are normally in high demand, and this year is no exception.

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