National Park Service Establishes National Campground Office And Tools For Improved Campground Management

As a record number of Americans continue to explore the outdoors, campground attendance has skyrocketed, placing a greater focus on the urgent need for campground improvement and modernization and increased availability. In response to these challenges, the National Park Service (NPS) has begun implementing groundbreaking methods to strengthen and streamline national and local campground management and to enhance transparency and consistency in decision-making.

Later this year, the NPS will launch a new National Campground Office. This new national program will be responsible for improving the visitor experience across the National Park Service’s more than 1,400 campgrounds by enhancing coordination across programs and facilitating technical assistance to parks and regions on campground related issues and services. The National Campground Office joins a list of previous updates from the National Park Service in the last year:

• Released comprehensive Campground Design Guidelines that were developed with significant input from Parks, Regions and Program staff
• Issued “Federal Camping Data Standards” for describing campground amenities and accessibility
• Increased the availability of campsites reservable through Recreation.gov
• Created multiple flexible bookings windows within Recreation.gov ranging from 6 months to 4 days to meet visitor concerns about lack of availability while preserving spontaneity.

In addition, the National Park Service is also establishing a Campground Financial Model for Decision Making, a tool intended to support parks seeking to build their case for campground modernization and expansion funding by addressing the internal review board’s most frequently asked questions. The financial model is designed to analyze revenue when deciding campground rates, determine the financial impacts of potential infrastructure investments, and evaluate the tradeoffs of different business models to improve campgrounds. 

“The RV Industry Association applauds the National Park Service’s steadfast commitment to improving the RVer’s and park visitor’s experience by establishing a National Campground Office and providing campground managers with the vital tools they need to sustainably modernize campgrounds for current and future generations of park visitors,” says Chris Bornemann, director of the RV Industry Association’s federal government affairs team. “Our team has been working tirelessly with the Department of the Interior and National Park Service to advance meaningful and sustainable investments in campground operations and we look forward to continuing to be a resource as they implement this historic initiative, which will significantly improve the campground experience for a growing RV camping community.”

This is the first time the agency has ever invested this amount of funding and resources into improving campground management and the visitor experience. The NPS describes their efforts as a transition from a focused initiative to a sustained investment in campground operations.

The full Campground Initiative Closeout Memo can be viewed here.