Arizona State Park camping fees

Naio wrote:

4X4Dodger wrote:
I think there is a general misunderstanding here. The vendors who run reservation systems like Reserve America have NO authority to raise or lower the cost of any campground or park.

They make their money by charging a reservation fee or in some cases taking a commission agreed upon with the state.

In most states a rise in the park rates would take an act of the legislature.

Contracting with a company to do online/Tel reservations cannot be classified as Privatization of parks.

It'not just reservations.

Aren't some vendors running cg stores, providing hosts, etc.? I have avoided cg's thst sre listed on the forest srvice websites as doing that, because I notice they are always priced higher than neigboring cg's with similar amenities. And because I disagree with the idea and am voting with my dollsrs.

At the biggest national parks, I think the restaurants, bike rentals, bookstores etc., are run privately. I could be wrong.

IF the state parks ran reservations like in the past - one, we'd have better info about sites and true availability. AND, if the PARKS charged the same reservation fee that RA charges ($9.00 or so) it could easily hire a local 'body' to do it, and could save the overhead and costs of maintaining a huge corporation + Profit.

RA often does a horrible job with reservations - so bad, we never use it. Cancellation fee of $17 ??? Transfer date fee of $17, one night reservation fee of $9 -- give me a break.

But what happened? The parks did not reduce overhead, did not lay off rangers (a good thing), did not recoup the reduction in costs and then improve the park. Now, we have the same rangers and volunteers doing the same jobs, but not the reservations ...

So, in fact, just because the park does not raise fees directly, a camper has additional costs to camp regardless of how it circumvents the laws about raising fees. We just call it a reservation fee - and if we don't pay it, we get no site reservation ... so how is that not raising fees? Oh, we call it charging a fee instead.

At least if the park got the reservation fees, anything remaining after paying that cost, would stay in the park. There are tech systems available that link sites to reservations, so a park with few has less to do, and sites with more have greater revenue, so can afford the employee to give correct site info AND not over/under book.

No one will ever convince me the parks and the campers save money and hassle with a private reservation company.