Case Study

Reinventing the Recreation.gov Customer Experience

Impacts & Outcomes
Frequently Asked Questions
Vignettes

Continuous innovation for a modern, scalable platform

From majestic national parks to important cultural landmarks and other public lands, the United States offers experiences that exist nowhere else in the world. An interagency coalition of 14 federal partners, including the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Park Service, wanted to transform how millions of visitors discover the nation’s public lands, which include more than 5,800 national parks, forests, lakes, and other federal recreation destinations across the United States.

Booz Allen helped these federal partners reinvent the existing reservation services system and improve the digital customer experience by building a more robust, reliable, and innovative Recreation.gov platform in 15 months. This collaboration also demonstrates the potential of outcomes-based contracting—a new acquisition model revolutionizing how the federal government partners with industry to serve the public.

The Challenge

Modernizing the digital customer experience is a priority for federal agencies, and Recreation.gov was no exception. More than half a billion people visit federal lands and waters each year. Visitors planning those trips and vacations expect an experience consistent with how they interact every day on commercial websites and mobile apps. The employee experience is also critical. Thousands of facility staff across multiple agencies needed a modern solution that could help them manage reservations at their locations, reliably execute complex business rules, and provide a detailed accounting of recreation fee revenue generated through the system. Efficiency and ease of use were paramount, as the solution also needed to help minimize the time needed for administrative tasks so staff could focus more on assisting visitors and safeguarding natural resources.

Interagency partners understood that the website needed a modern reboot with modular architecture and open-source technologies like those used by commercial e-commerce sites. They envisioned a reimagined, cloud-native digital platform that would give Recreation.gov users a more modern customer experience—one that truly revolutionizes how people explore and manage the nation’s public lands.

The Approach

Recreation.gov is an ongoing investment for Booz Allen, designed collaboratively with participating agencies, but at no upfront cost to the federal government. The unique approach—known as outcomes-based contracting, or “outcomes as a service”—is focused on outcomes in a way that lets the government and Booz Allen share in risk, reward, results, and impact. This is a true public-private partnership—it is not funded through any tax dollars or other agency appropriations.

Designed with customer experience at the core, the platform is founded on extensive user research and feedback from visitors and field staff. Prior to the launch of the platform, Booz Allen conducted research with more than 300 users and developed a brand strategy that is based on current user behaviors consistently applied across all digital platforms. The customer experience—for both visitors and field staff—continues to be enhanced and optimized, with the Recreation.gov team leveraging a suite of digital listening and outreach tools to engage and respond to feedback from thousands of users each year to improve the platform.

Using modern e-commerce technologies, our Booz Allen team of software engineers, cloud architects, customer experience specialists, and other experts led the accelerated reinvention of the legacy Recreation.gov site. We implemented DevSecOps practices and a microservice model to enable continuous delivery and a cycle of improvement that rapidly responds to user feedback and changing market conditions. We brought an advanced approach to agile software development while keeping it flexible, scalable, and secure. The platform is deployed to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to achieve substantial redundancy and resiliency. Since release, the system has maintained more than 99.995% uptime.

BY THE NUMBERS

Over the first six years of operation:

The Solution

Today’s Recreation.gov delivers the most advanced technical infrastructure and customer experience among federal and state government services within the recreation market and is on par with the most successful commercial platforms.

The Recreation.gov platform provides federal land management agencies with innovative, commercial-grade digital capabilities tailored to the unique needs of the government space and leverages modern solutions to improve visitor access, such as the Recreation.gov mobile app, which has more than 63,000 total reviews, a 4.9 rating in the Apple App Store, and a 4.8 rating in the Google Play Store. This modular technology blueprint is purpose-built to deliver more value to both visitors and facility staff. For example, with no coding experience necessary, staff members at any given facility can update content, booking windows, fees, reservation details, business rules, and more based on local needs. That way, field managers can make changes to content, communications, and business rules in real time versus in days or weeks—and the public has access to the most up-to-date information.

The site uses cloud-native microservices and continuous delivery to meet availability, scalability, and delivery requirements. Its advanced technical infrastructure and Booz Allen’s investment allow the program to continually evolve to address the needs of agencies, facilities, and citizens. In March 2020, COVID-19 challenges highlighted the importance of this innovative and flexible approach. In less than five months, Booz Allen and our federal partners worked together to quickly identify and launch new functionality to help facilities reopen safely, including features such as contactless payment, timed-entry, and scan-&-pay. These tools enabled federal lands to offer safe and convenient experiences to the public while abiding by local and federal guidelines.

With Booz Allen’s technical expertise, Recreation.gov has elevated how people experience the nation’s federal lands and waterways. It has also provided field staff with the tools they need to better manage their locations, simplifying and reducing their administrative tasks so they can focus more time on visitors—letting rangers be rangers. With more than 53 million site visitors in fiscal year 2024, the platform generated more than $321 million in revenue for the federal government, facilitated close to 11 million annual reservations, and garnered more than 131.3 million website sessions.

Due to the scale and impact of the Recreation.gov public-facing services, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) selected the site as a high-impact service provider, meaning OMB regularly meets with interagency partners to understand how the site is continuously improving the customer experience. Booz Allen has worked with visitors, facilities, and the agency partners of Recreation.gov to identify and implement new features and services, such as enhanced findability, new self-service field management tools, digital wallet, guest check for streamlined bookings, availability alerts, and expanded visitor notifications, that modernize the solution and improve the field and visitor experience

Recreation.gov has become a model for how the federal government incorporates a consumer-friendly design through agile development, cognitive and cloud technologies, secure DevSecOps, and piloting AI technology to improve search and customer experience. In addition, as a true public-private partnership, Recreation.gov is paving the way for how the federal government and industry set the standard for modern customer experience.

Booz Allen and Recreation.gov: Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

Recreation.gov is a model of continuous, outcomes-oriented delivery. A partnership between a U.S. federal government interagency team and Booz Allen, Recreation.gov enhances access to federal public lands and waters, protects federal resources, enables staff to spend more time in the field, and allows visitors to more easily enjoy America’s outdoor and cultural destinations.

The following are frequently asked questions about the Recreation.gov program, the platform designed by Booz Allen, and the partnership model.

How is the platform impacting user experience and improving access to federal public lands and waters?

From a visitor making an online reservation to a park rolling out new services, the priority of Recreation.gov is to deliver a commercial-quality user experience for everyone. Across all transactions and throughout the peak seasons of the calendar, users have a mobile, secure, resilient, intuitive system at their fingertips. We are investing heavily in mobile solutions for both visitors and facility staff, along with capabilities to ensure that the platform is accessible to a diverse range of users. To understand user needs, the team gets feedback from a myriad of listening channels that Booz Allen reviews with our government partners on a quarterly basis. Together, we use that continuous feedback to make data-driven decisions about the design approach.

Data and visitor feedback continue to demonstrate an overall positive story about user experience with the platform. For example, as of October 2024, about 23,000 of the nearly 31,000 ratings and reviews from past reservation holders for the Rocky Mountain National Park timed entry permit system are 4 or 5 stars. For another high-traffic destination, Arches National Park, the timed entry system has received 16,958 ratings and reviews, 12,570 of which are five stars. Beyond the website and app, Booz Allen continues to partner with the interagency Recreation.gov team to enhance features for users of all abilities. For example, the online help center and call center, both managed by Booz Allen, work with the Recreation.gov team to help fill the gap for visitors who need additional assistance with making online reservations (or simply prefer to talk to a human being), and satisfaction scores for these interactions are well above industry standards. Ongoing improvements are being made for screen readers and keyboard-only users, and the team is responding to user feedback by deploying new customer-centric capabilities, including availability alerts, quick filters and navigation, and increased communication options for a more customizable experience.

In addition, notable upgrades to the suite of field management tools available through the R1S Ranger App (both Android and iOS) signified a major step in helping get facility staff out from behind a desk and allowing them to spend more time with visitors in the field. Continued expansion of mobile management tools allows staff to conduct more business on the go and increase the time spent with visitors.

The above is just a snapshot of ongoing development to deploy customer-centric capabilities and continually transform what agencies and the public can receive from the platform.

Are agencies and facilities mandated to participate in the program, and who sets the reservation policies?

No, there is no mandate to use the services that are available in the Recreation.gov program. The 14 agencies that participate in the program have done so by choice. In most cases, the choice to participate in the program and in any of the services is left up to the individual facilities based on their needs. There are currently more than 5,800 facilities and over 128,000 individual reservable sites and activities across the nation that can be accessed through Recreation.gov.

Agencies may choose to participate in Recreation.gov for several reasons, including automation of administrative tasks, increased management capability, cost reduction, risk reduction, or better customer service. The platform allows field users to manage their locations with less administrative time and cost, more data for informed decision making, less cash collection, and improved customer experience. This is done without individual facilities having to put resources toward contracting, financial processing, IT support, or quality control. The reservation system has also led to increases in occupancy, revenue, and customer satisfaction for the facilities that participate.

Participating agencies customize individual policies for their campgrounds, sites, and activities featured on the Recreation.gov platform. The facilities also set their own booking windows and update their own content, fees, reservation details, and business rules to address their local needs in real time. Booz Allen does not set the policies or fees for customers but ensures that Recreation.gov serves the evolving requirements of the individual agencies and facilities that choose to participate.

How is the Recreation.gov contract funded, and how does that impact reservation fees?

Booz Allen operates under a competitively awarded contract with fixed-unit pricing (set for the duration of the contract) to minimize customer costs. Booz Allen is subject to quality and performance controls to ensure this public-private partnership drives innovation, collaboration, and solutions to facility and visitor management challenges. In coordination with our agency partners, Booz Allen continually invests its own funds for the continued modernization and growth of Recreation.gov—evolving and expanding services to address and anticipate the needs of agencies, facilities, and citizens. By design, this means that Booz Allen takes on the investment risk to build the site to the government’s specifications, and the partnership is focused on delivering high-value outcomes, technical customization, and a world-class customer experience.

Recreation.gov is not funded by Congressional appropriations or any other portion of the agency budgets and relies on reservation fees to fund the program. Those reservation fees are set and managed by the participating U.S. federal government agencies. Booz Allen does not receive any fees or other funds directly through Recreation.gov, and the majority of revenue generated through Recreation.gov goes back to the agencies and facilities.

Full Moon, Full Insights

How Recreation.gov Enables Data-Driven Stewardship of America’s Public Lands through One Platform

Yosemite National Park, California (Li Liu, Share the Experience)

Similar to how the dark side of the moon is often out of view, most people don’t see the full suite of management tools, reports, and dashboards Recreation.gov delivers to agencies and field staff.

In addition to the public-facing reservation and travel planning website and mobile app, Recreation.gov provides a full internal facility management platform for agency leaders and federal land managers. This secure, cloud-based management solution captures and organizes transaction and visitation data from millions of reservations each year, making it easier to manage federal lands and waters efficiently. A cohesive, near-real-time data ecosystem delivers a contextual view of recreation use across federal public lands, helping agency leadership and on-the-ground managers make better decisions, improve operations, and support data-driven planning at thousands of locations nationwide.

Delivered through a public-private partnership, built and powered by Booz Allen, Recreation.gov delivers enterprise-grade engineering, analytics, cybersecurity, and reliability, allowing agencies to focus on mission outcomes rather than maintaining dozens of disconnected systems. Our unified platform:

Allows data to be interoperable: giving leaders the full picture of activity across forests, parks, and recreation areas, not as isolated metrics but as a connected national story
Provides insights to be mission-ready: with dashboards that reveal congestion trends, shifting visitor behaviors, environmental impacts, and access needs in real time
Streamlines operations: with one system to manage reporting, compliance, user experience updates, payments, and security monitoring
Gives mission teams increased situational awareness: understanding not just what is happening at a single site but how nationwide patterns shape visitation management, staffing demands, infrastructure planning, and conservation efforts

This full unified technical foundation delivers measurable impact: processing 50M+ reservations and transactions annually, supporting 90K+ bookable experiences, and enabling agencies to stand up new digital services in weeks instead of months.

National Parks, National Forests, other federal recreation destinations across the country offer special full moon programs, like ranger-led hikes or extended hours, to experience the night sky's magic, such as Bryce Canyon National Park (hoodoo hikes), Black Hills National Forest (moon walks) and Olympic National Park (Hurricane Ridge astronomy), to name a few. These events allow Americans to safely experience our public lands at night to enjoy the unique nightscapes and astronomy.

Learn more about how we are using technology to enable mission impact—one full moon at a time!

Recreation.Gov Impact Vignettes

Digital Christmas Tree Permits Modernize a Tradition

Boise National Forest, Idaho by Taylor Wrigley via Share the Experience

For decades, families looking to cut their own Christmas tree on U.S. Forest Service (USFS) lands had to purchase permits, which were sold almost exclusively in person. That meant limited awareness and often required families to drive long distances to forest-service offices that only took cash. USFS staff spent hours collecting, accounting, and transporting cash to banks. The permit process, beyond being relatively unknown and inefficient, also carried risks of theft and fraud, and even raised concerns about staff safety. At the agency level, leadership had little real-time visibility into how many permits were being sold or where demand was highest.

An initial rollout of the USFS digital Christmas tree permit program took 24 months, involved 12 forests, and resulted in the issuance of 5,000 permits. In 2020, the USFS decided to transition the program to the Recreation.gov platform to leverage the outcomes-based contracting model.

The results were remarkable. Within 5 months, the platform built a Christmas tree permitting service, onboarded 76 forests, sold roughly 250,000 permits, and eliminated the need to process up to $2.5 million in cash. Families can purchase a permit online or through the mobile app in minutes, download cutting guidelines, and head directly into the forest without making an extra trip to a USFS station. For USFS staff and leadership, the change has been just as dramatic: automated dashboards show minute-by-minute sales across the country, offering transparency into demand trends, revenue collection, and quota management.

The transition significantly reduced staff hours spent handling cash, reconciliation, and paperwork. Staff are now freer to focus on interacting with visitors and protecting the land.

For families, the impact has been equally clear. No more driving 50 miles to purchase a permit. No more uncertainty about whether permits are still available. Instead, visitors can plan ahead, enjoy a smoother experience, and spend more time making holiday memories.

The Booz Allen digital transformation of Christmas tree permits is a model of how thoughtful modernization can protect beloved traditions while bringing efficiency, safety, and transparency to government services.

Wild Turkey Trot: How Recreation.gov Connects People to Nature

A wild turkey standing in a field of yellow wildflowers

Great Smoky Mountains National Park by David Turko via Share the Experience

Advanced Technology for Access and Sustainability

Gobble, gobble! Did you know there are several national parks and forests where you can spot a wild turkey—Big Bend National Park, Great Smoky National Park, Mark Twain National Forest, Gifford Pinchot National Forest—to name a few. These feathered locals have made a remarkable comeback. It’s a powerful reminder of how digital access through platforms like Recreation.gov connects people to nature while supporting sustainable stewardship.

Booz Allen is proud to deliver the technical solution behind Recreation.gov— delivering the most advanced customer experience among federal and state government recreation services and on par with the most successful commercial platforms.

Recreation.gov has helped 31.5 million registered account holders make over 62.4 million reservations. Outdoor enthusiasts and first-time visitors can easily make reservations at over 5,800 locations across the country via the website or mobile app—and maybe even spot a wild turkey. The Recreation.gov mobile app is available in the Apple App Store (4.9-star rating) or the Google Play Store (4.8-star rating).

For additional information, visit Recreation.gov.

Digital Customer Experience

Software Development

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