April 11, 2022
The NWT Parks reservation system officially opened last Tuesday in phases with the first bookings of 2022 being for campsites at Yellowknife’s Prelude Lake Park.
While an incredible 682 reservations were received in the first hour on Tuesday, the real test for the on-line platform came on Thursday when 750 bookings were registered for the Fred Henne campground in the opening 23 minutes.
By the end of the first week, 3029 reservations were in place for 2022 – that’s a little less than last year’s 3763. North Slave parks were the most contested with 2371 bookings processed across the four opening days. In total, the reservation system registered over 70,000 page views.
The NWT Border is open this year to leisure travelers and NWT parks contractors and staff are looking forward to welcoming visitors from across Canada and around the world. A quarter of last week’s visits to the website (23% from the US; 2% from elsewhere) came from outside of Canada.
Meanwhile, 90% of total reservations made in Beaufort Delta came from outside of the NWT. That compares to almost half (48%) for South Slave parks and 40% in the Dehcho. Only 6% of bookings in the North Slave came from outside of the NWT.
NWT Parks welcomed a total of 25,843 overnight visitors last year; 12% more than in 2020 but less than the pre-pandemic total of 35,249 in 2019.