OC Parks experiencing 90% Increase in Campers

More people are camping in Oconee County than ever before. According to the latest figures, the county has experienced a 90% increase in campers, says Oconee County Parks, Recreation and Tourism Director Phil Shirley. “We continue to climb in a number of statistical standpoints and we don’t want to measure success by just number, but man the last four years have just been incredible. For the second year in a row, this year the parks themselves brought in over a half million dollars in revenue and we had never reached that point. We hit it last year and this year we are almost at $600,000. We saw a 12% increase in revenue, we saw a 25-26% increase in camping nights and we did almost 18,000 camping nights last year with our three county parks. Over the last four years, camping is up 90%.” Shirley credits the increase in campers to the switch to www.reserveamerica.com. “I credit the majority of that to that business model change of first come first serve versus going to what a traditional hotel or vacation spot would do because people plan. We are never going to be able to accommodate both sides of that coin. There are still people who want to decide today they want to go camping tonight and tomorrow and we do have some sites. Mostly we have a handful of sites that we can accommodate, but it is not going to be the prime sites that you would want to stay on, but it has been really good for us. The staff has been extremely busy, every weekend is full, especially at the two lake parks, High Falls and South Cove. Chau Ram usually has a few sites available you can get onto on the river, but that will change as we get into the fall. It starts to pick up in the cooler time when more people want to go whitewater rafting and come in to stay.” Find out more about what Oconee County has to offer by visiting www.experienceoconee.com and www.visitoconeesc.com.