Oregon State parks to ditch off-season camping discounts

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is planning to eliminate "Discovery Season" discounts at state park campsites in an effort to save $400,000 to $500,000 a year, the agency announced Monday.

For the past 20 years, the discount program reduced tent and RV campsite costs by $4 per night during the off-season -- Oct. 1 to April 30.

Beginning in 2015, the discovery season discount will be eliminated and replaced with more targeted discounts, OPRD spokesman Chris Havel said. The discount still applies for this season, until April 30, 2015.

A campsite at Cape Lookout State Park during winter cost $15 per night with the discount. In the future, it will cost $19.

"Discovery Season has done its job," Havel said. "It was great way to introduce yurts to Oregonians and to encourage fall and winter camping, but we now need to move away from a 'one size fits all' discount."

A big reason for the change is monetary. The parks department gets much of its funding from 7.5 percent of the Oregon Lottery, but as those funds have declined, the department has become more dependent on user fees.

Havel said that together with parking revenue, visitors contribute $21 million of the $48 million a year it takes to operate state parks.

"We love the idea of discounts and rewards for our customers. But we have to be much more targeted," he said. "It makes better business sense to offer incentives that attract campers to sites that would normally sit empty, instead of discounting sites that would fill anyway."

Zach Urness has been an outdoors writer, photographer and videographer in Oregon for six years. He is the author of the book "Hiking Southern Oregon" and can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Facebook at Zach's Oregon Outdoors or @ZachsORoutdoors on Twitter.