Parks Victoria apologises for bookings pause

Parks Victoria has apologised for a series of security, monitoring and performance issues with its new booking platform for camping and accommodation bookings.

Introduced at the beginning of last month, the Victorian Government agency advised in a statement as of 2nd August, that “following some system issues when bookings initially opened initially opened on 4th July (it) … will open bookings progressively over the coming weeks”.

Problems with the new booking system saw users unable to make camping and accommodation bookings for the 2023/24 season. This followed a data breach that saw private information compromised for a “very small number of users”.

Parks Victoria has advised that it is working with their booking system supplier to ensure it can fix the issues, and will reach those affected by the data breach.

The Parks Victoria statement continued “following a thorough investigation made by the booking system supplier, we are aware that a very small number of users were able to see other people’s booking details - there has been no evidence that sensitive information such as credit card details and driver’s licence numbers were shared.

“Due to these issues, we are currently unable to take bookings for all unpowered sites over the phone or online.

“We apologise for the inconvenience and ask you to be patient as we work with our supplier on a solution for the future to enable the release of bookings as soon as possible.

“Parks Victoria will not be charging for camping at unpowered sites and bookings are not required while the system is down.”

As part of the upgraded online booking system, Parks Victoria has removed ballots from the last remaining balloted campground in the state - Tidal River Campground at Wilsons Promontory National Park.

This saw campers able to book every bookable campground across Victoria instantly, with no need to wait to hear if a ballot application was successful or not.

Image: Tidal River Campground at Wilsons Promontory National Park. Credit: Parks Victoria.