Yosemite Ends Park Reservation Requirements
25.08.2023 - 14:38
/ skift.com
/ Dawit Habtemariam
Yosemite National Park will not have a reservation system for the summer of 2023 and will embark on a process of gathering community input as whether it should to reinstate it in the future. Yosemite put a reservation system in place for two years because of the pandemic and continued it because of park construction projects. But the reservation requirement set off a chain of consequences for local communities, including traffic jams because cars weren’t allowed to drive through the park.
So Yosemite will not be reinstating a reservation system this upcoming summer, breaking the trend among U.S. national parks to limit visitor access. During that time, it will be gathering feedback and insight from communities, a practice that underscores a Skift megatrend that communities are no longer spectators in travel.
The U.S. National Park Service made the reservation removal announcement in November. Reservations at Yosemite were required in the summers of 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. Last summer, the park required day-trip visitors during peak hours of 4 a.m. to 6 p.m. to make a reservation in advance.
The program was kept in place last summer due to construction projects, which included a welcome center, campground rehabilitation, expanded parking and road repairs, which will contribute to visitor experience.
Starting this winter, Yosemite will conduct a public scoping process, according to Jonahthan Farrington, executive director of Yosemite Mariposa County Tourism Bureau, the destination marketing organization for Mariposa County, one of the four counties Yosemite National Park spans.
Under the public scoping process, Yosemite will gather feedback from businesses, communities and the public at large over the course of the year to develop a plan for the park’s future, which could result in a new reservation system. One of the topics that will likely be brought up are the indirect consequences of the park’s restricted entry and construction projects, which caused resulting car congestion on local highways and roads because cars couldn’t drive through the park during peak hours without a reservation, according to Farrington.
Yosemite’s reservation removal is an exception to a general trend among national parks. “The greater trend is going to be towards higher levels of restriction just because of the sheer number of visitors that are visiting our national parks,” said Wildland Trekking co-founder Scott Cundy.
During the pandemic, visitors flocked to national parks in record numbers, causing overtourism, a Skift megatrend has highlighted. In response, many national parks required restrictive booking windows, often between 30 and 60 days to manage the large crowds.
Yosemite saw 3.3 million visits in