Making it Easy for Americans to Access the Great Outdoors
Recreation.gov offers 'impressive' user experience
When Americans want to book a trip to a national park, forest, or cultural landmark, they deserve a quick and seamless experience. That’s exactly what Recreation.gov delivers. Every year, millions of people use it to reserve campsites at Yosemite, get backpacking permits for the Grand Canyon, and plan excursions to more than 5,800 locations across the country. The site and mobile app have been described as “impressive and decidedly un-government-like” and “smoother than most private reservation sites.” And Recreation.gov, which is not funded with tax dollars or agency appropriations, generates more than $300 million of annual revenue for the U.S. government.
With over 50 million annual visitors, Recreation.gov is one of the government’s most widely visited websites. The services and solutions provided through the platform are managed by an interagency team of federal government staff that works alongside the contracted Booz Allen technology team to deliver a secure and commercial-quality service. Today, the platform is a model for how outcomes-based contracts can shift risk from federal agencies to private companies and deliver better, faster results for Americans.
Building a Better Website (and Mobile App)
Building better, more useful public websites is a priority for the U.S. government. Recreation.gov proves that it can be done without large upfront investments of taxpayer dollars.
From the outset of the project, Booz Allen has invested its own money to design and build a digital reservation platform that meets the needs of hikers, campers, and other visitors to America’s parks. Before writing a single line of code, our team researched the behaviors of more than 300 users of the previous version of the site. They used those findings and advanced software development techniques to build a new Recreation.gov designed specifically for the cloud. The team also engineered the site to allow for continuous improvement with a suite of digital outreach tools that constantly collect feedback to improve performance and give users what they want.
The result is a website and mobile app that lets visitors easily and confidently book campsites, tours, and permits, and the proof is in the performance. In just one contract cycle, Recreation.gov has processed more than 55 million reservations and generated over $1.7 billion in revenue for the U.S. government. It facilitated 170% growth in reservations during its first five years in operation and currently has 31.5 million registered account holders. The Recreation.gov mobile app has been reviewed more than 380,000 times and enjoys a 4.9 rating in the Apple App Store and a 4.8 rating in the Google Play Store. Since the platform went live, calls to the customer center are down by 75%, and the site has maintained more than 99.9% uptime, which essentially means it never crashes.
For millions of Americans, Recreation.gov is the digital front door to America’s public lands. “When it's time to get away and reconnect with nature, the reservation process and app make paradise accessible,” says Recreation.gov user Miller S.
Increased Innovation, More Revenue for Parks Revenue
Recreation.gov has also helped park rangers and field staff manage operations and handle reservations more efficiently.
Olympic National Park in Washington State, for example, used the site to make it easier to secure wilderness permits. Previously, staff had to manually handle each permit request, a process that took approximately 15 minutes per request. Recreation.gov accelerated operations. On launch day, the site processed 931 permits in the first hour. The park has estimated that the site saves over 5,000 staff hours annually, which equates to $100,000–$150,000 in labor costs.
When Indiana Dunes became a national park in 2019, it couldn’t keep up with demand for its campground. Park leadership partnered with Recreation.gov to make it possible to reserve 50% of its camp sites online while maintaining walk-up availability for spontaneous visitors. Within the first season, revenue for the park grew by $53,000, and visitors reported higher satisfaction.
And at Joshua Tree National Park, staff used Recreation.gov to implement an online booking and automatic payment processing system for tours of Keys Ranch. Transitioning the Keys Ranch tour to Recreation.gov has been one of the best decisions we have made,” says a ranger at Joshua Tree National Park. “The amount of staff hours that we are saving and the improved customer service and convenience are a true testament to the many benefits of Recreation.gov.”
No Upfront Risk—Lots of Reward
Recreation.gov’s transformation was made possible at little upfront cost to the federal government, in large part because the site operates under an outcomes-based contract. The contract model blends technology delivery with 24/7 programmatic support, and Booz Allen’s compensation is tied to programmatic outcomes rather than labor hours. As a result, we are financially incentivized to maintain a commercial-grade, modern system and to collaborate closely with the government to improve usability, add services, and onboard more facilities.
In fiscal year 2024, Recreation.gov generated more than $321 million for the government while facilitating nearly 11 million annual reservations and garnering more than 131.3 million website sessions. The site is not just a feel-good technology story. It’s a model of outcomes-oriented delivery and an example of how the government and private sector can build technology that works and that people want to use.
