Reserving a campsite in B.C.: An improved system for the 2017 season

According to an article on Global News, campers now have a better chance of reserving their perfect B.C. holiday spot.

Camping in B.C. is a beloved activity, and it's gaining popularity every year. Campers are so eager to secure a spot, that in 2016 the BC Parks reservation system was overloaded with three times the traffic it had in 2015. This led to people using unfair measures to acquire sites and profit from the high demand.

In an effort to make things fair for everyone, a new reservation format was rolled out beginning in mid-March, 2017.

An article by Anne Drewa on the Global News website had further details about the changes:

Beginning in 2017, the mid-March opening day for reservations will be scrapped and the three month rolling reservation window will be extended.

It now means reservations for the 2017 season can be made four months in advance of an individual campground’s first reservable date.

The changes come after complaints surfaced last year over the reselling of reservations, overbooking, and long weekends being unfairly secured.

Permit holders can no longer change the name on their reservations, and one of the named permit holders must be present during the stay. This prevents people from reserving multiple spaces and reselling their reservations at a premium. In 2016 alone, BC Parks identified 46 incidents of this.

There will also be a pilot project in some high-occupancy provincial campgrounds, which will shorten the maximum allowable stay from 14 days to seven, during peak season. This could create over 1,000 campsite vacancies. According to Drewa's article, the demand for campsite reservations in B.C. has grown by more than 91 per cent in the past five years.

For more information, read the full article on Global News.