Innovative Software
Offers Cave Tour Tickets Online for Arizona's Kartchner Caverns State
Park (www.azparks.gov)
PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 8, 2005--Kartchner Caverns State Park,
one of the top 10 caves in the world due to the diversity of its calcite
formations, will now be easier to book for your next family vacation to
Arizona.
The Arizona State Parks department has implemented a real-time innovative
Internet cave reservation system at www.azparks.gov. Arizona's newest
state park, which draws thousands of visitors to southeastern Arizona,
still offers reservations by phone, but now new software makes it easier
for worldwide visitors to book online.
"This is a big step for a small state agency, but Kartchner Caverns
has two areas of the cave now open and we had to assist our international
visitors who wanted to book tours in real time," said Executive Director
Ken Travous. "The State Parks department controls ticket sales and
offers streamlined customer service while reservationists help visitors
plan around their other destinations such as Tombstone. We wanted to be
sure visitors confirmed tours but also had firm travel plans before they
drove to southeastern Arizona on extended vacations.
"Booking real-time tours on the Internet for any venue is a challenge,
but we've completed testing with our vendor, Paciolan Inc., and are ready
for the public to book three months in advance from our Web site,"
said Travous. There are also 100 walk-up cave tour tickets available each
day at 7:30 a.m. at the gate.
The State Parks' online booking is expected to improve the efficiency
of the Kartchner Caverns' reservation system dramatically. Gov. Janet
Napolitano, who implemented an Efficiency Review initiative when she took
office in 2003, applauded the new system. "The Kartchner Caverns'
online registration will make it easier for Arizonans to plan trips to
one of our state's most beautiful natural treasures. It is also a great
example of a government agency finding smarter, more efficient ways to
serve the people of Arizona."
What is attracting visitors to southeastern Arizona is the opening of
the vast new 1.7-acre "Big Room" with its jumbled masses of
colossal boulders covered with colored flowstone. Ceilings are studded
with stalactites and stalagmites jut from the floors. The room shimmers
with brilliant red flowstone colored by traces of iron and pure white
calcium carbonate formations. Traces of manganese create black, blue and
purple formations. Microscopic quartz needles form "bird's nests"
and "brushite moonmilk," which are all rare for caves. The Big
Room closes during the summer to let the cave "rest and rejuvenate"
and so cave myotis bats can roost.
The Kartchner Caverns Rotunda/Throne tour offers a kaleidoscope of color
with 100-foot-high ceilings dripping with multihued stalactites while
giant white columns dot the underground scene. Dainty white helictites,
translucent orange bacon, and shields of white calcite adorn each crevice.
An extraordinarily thin soda straw hangs tenuously 21 feet 2 inches down
from the ceiling.
Book cave tours at www.azparks.gov or by calling 520-586-2283. Big Room
tours are $12.95 for children 7-13 and $22.95 for adults, but no children
6 or under. The Rotunda/Throne Room tour is $9.95 for children and $18.95
for adults. Development tours are booked once a day. Camping in the 62
spaces at Kartchner Caverns State Park is $22 with no reservations in
advance.
For information about the Arizona State Parks department call 602-542-4174
or visit the Web site at www.azparks.gov.
Article originally published in Businesswire at:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20051208005914&newsLang=en
