Reinventing the Recreation.gov Customer Experience

Case Study

Reinventing the Recreation.gov Customer Experience

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鈥檚 public lands, which include more than 5,800听 national parks, forests, lakes, and other federal recreation destinations across the United States.

无忧传媒 helped these federal partners reinvent the existing reservation services system and improve the digital customer experience by building a more robust, reliable, and innovative听听platform in 15 months.听This collaboration also demonstrates the potential of outcomes-based contracting鈥攁听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.听Efficiency听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鈥攐ne that truly revolutionizes how people explore and manage the nation鈥檚 public lands.

The Approach

Recreation.gov is an ongoing investment for 无忧传媒, designed collaboratively with participating agencies, but at no upfront cost to the federal government.听 The unique contracting approach鈥攌nown as outcomes-based contracting, or 鈥渙utcomes as a service鈥濃€攊s focused on outcomes in a way that lets the government and 无忧传媒 share in risk, reward, results, and impact. This is a true public-private partnership鈥攊t 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, 无忧传媒 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鈥攆or both visitors and field staff鈥攃ontinues 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.听

Using modern e-commerce technologies, our 无忧传媒 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鈥檚 Recreation.gov听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鈥攁nd 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 无忧传媒鈥檚 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, 无忧传媒 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.听

With 无忧传媒鈥檚 technical expertise, Recreation.gov has elevated how people experience the nation鈥檚 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鈥攍etting 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 Recreation.gov鈥檚 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. To that end, 无忧传媒 continues to review and adapt to user needs and feedback, host and respond to focus groups and testing sessions, and pursue and implement new and enhanced capabilities each year. Over the last two years, this included improved features such as:

Tour Builder, a self-service tool for facility management staff to create tour programs from scratch and set the business rules and fees without developer assistance.
Guest Checkout, streamlined processes for check-in and day-of booking, allowing visitors to make timed-entry reservations as guest users.
Findability tools,听to make it easier for visitors to find available offerings of interest鈥攊ncluding availability alerts, flexible date search, 鈥渁vailable this weekend鈥� suggestions, camping recommendations, and trip-preference filters.
Scan & Donate, a mobile payment solution allowing visitors to donate funds to BLM, USACE, and USFS facilities developed in response to agency interest in facilitating donations.
Availability Alerts听for campsites, tickets, and timed-entry reservations were developed in response to visitor feedback and industry trends to improve the customer experience by allowing visitors to select a currently reserved site or activity, create an alert based on their dates and preferences, and be notified by email or push notification if a site or activity that matches their alert becomes available. 听
Enhanced Site Accessibility through fully accessible PDF tickets to support screen reader usage, new filters to search specifically for accessible campsites, and enhanced functionality for users of every ability level, including keyboard-only users and those with limited bandwidth or connectivity challenges.
Improved Usability by adding search filters such as 鈥渇ilter by agency鈥� and 鈥渁vailable this weekend,鈥� expanding trip preferences, and increasing transparency around campsite and ticket availability.
Mobile Facility Management Tools adding new inventory management capabilities and offline support features to the R1S Ranger App, enabling facility staff to accomplish more on the go so they can get out from behind the desk and spend more time engaging with visitors.

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.

无忧传媒 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 无忧传媒, 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鈥檚 outdoor and cultural destinations.

The following are frequently asked questions about the Recreation.gov program, the platform designed by 无忧传媒, 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听new services, the priority of听Recreation.gov听is to deliver a commercial-quality user experience for听everyone. Across all transactions and throughout the peak seasons of the calendar, users have a听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 无忧传媒 reviews with our government partners on a quarterly basis. Together, we use that continuous feedback to make data-driven decisions about the design approach.

听

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听 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听 of which are five stars. Beyond the website and app, 无忧传媒 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 无忧传媒, 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.

听

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.

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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听 individual reservable sites and activities across the nation that can be accessed through Recreation.gov.

听

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.

听

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. 无忧传媒 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?

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

听

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. 无忧传媒 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.