Registration Fee: A Required "Fee" to Pay Another "Fee"

[Winston]

Today we don't write about our principal pet-peeve - - 100% Reservation Systems - - but to observe that we're apparently not the only citizens to question "Registration Fees" - - Fees one must pay in order to pay other fees.

Not so many years ago, campgrounds hired staff to take your money and place you in a site. This was an expense of doing business which campgrounds paid. Like other expenses, presumably this cost was integrated into each campsite fee.

One might expect that with automated payment kiosks and self-directed, on-line reservation systems that the cost to the campground would be less than in the old days with ‘hired staff’. The campground can create their own reservation system or contract with third party vendors for the service but, in either event, why shouldn’t this expense be borne, as historically it has, by the campground?

We suspect some will argue we’re nit-picking - - what’s an extra $8 charge when reserving a $50 campsite for a week? Ok. But not all of us stay for a week nor focus on those $50/night options. Recently, for example, we attempted to reserve a Forest Service site in Utah - - with our senior discount, the site would have been $7.50 - - the added “fee to pay” for the site would have more than doubled our cost.

We make this post to share a link to a National Parks Traveler article that opens with this paragraph:

“In the wake of articles by the National Parks Traveler and the Wall Street Journal, two U.S. senators are wondering why a private company is being paid millions of dollars to manage the website that serves as a national portal for accessing recreational activities on federal lands.”

You should find this article and the Senators’ letter interesting and you may want to add your two-cents-worth by writing your Congressmen.

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2023/07/senators-why-private-company-managing-recreationgov