A provincial parks official says they are continuing to see a change in the way Manitobans go camping. Elisabeth Ostrop made the comment as the reservation system opened up this week for most campgrounds in the province. She explains the trend is evident when you look at which sites are most in demand.

"The full-service sites and the campsites that offer the higher levels of service, typically are the ones that go first. Those are the ones that sell out on long weekends first. I think people have moved from camping in the canvas tent to the luxury RV with all kinds of slideouts so they, of course, need a little bit more power to accommodate all the amenities that they have inside their camping units."

Ostrop says they are continuing to try and accommodate that demand.

"We do electrify more sites from time to time as budgets and space allow. But it's kind of hard to retrofit a campground that was built in the 50's or 60's to accommodate some of these larger camping units without knocking down trees, which we don't like to do."

For the second year in a row, the province this year opened reservations in a three-stage system to ease the logjam in the system. The final two stages opened this past Monday and Wednesday. Ostrop says 8,400 bookings came in Wednesday which was up from the same day last year. The total for of all reservations year-to-date is 24,500, which is down 200 from last year. She says the staggered reservation is achieving the desired result.

"It appears to equally spread the number of reservations across the three dates and so the experience for people that are maybe wanting to book a campsite that is not as popular as say a Falcon Lake, West Hawk Lake or Bird's Hill, don't get caught up in the fervour. Now our line, first thing in the morning, clears out within the first hour-and-a-half whereas in the old days it might not have cleared out until 9:00 in the morning."