Yosemite Ends Park Reservation Requirements to Evaluate Impact on Communities
Photo Credit: Yosemite National Park will not reinstate a reservation system for the summer of 2023. Skift / Jeffrey Keenan
Skift Take
Yosemite National Park is breaking a national park trend by not reinstating a summer reservation system. What happens to the park's visitor experience and local ecosystems could influence other national parks to reconsider theirs.
Yosemite National Park will not have a reservation system for the summer of 2023 and will embark on a process of gathering community input as whether it should to reinstate it in the future. Yosemite put a reservation system in place for two years because of the pandemic and continued it because of park construction projects. But the reservation requirement set off a chain of consequences for local communities, including traffic jams because cars weren't allowed to drive through the park.
So Yosemite will not be reinstating a reservation system this upcoming summer, breaking the trend among U.S. national parks to limit visitor access. During that time, it will be gathering feedback and insight from communities, a practice that underscores a Skift megatrend that communities are no longer spectators in travel.
The U.S. National Park Service made the reservation removal announcem
