By Colorado Parks and Wildlife
Special to The SUN
Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) has good news for park visitors who don’t travel with much pocket money.
CPW is rolling out new self-service kiosks at Colorado state parks that will augment or replace the existing system requiring customers to place their cash in envelopes when staff aren’t available to sell park passes.
The new machines take credit cards and are more weather-resistant than the envelope system, more convenient for customers who aren’t carrying cash and require less employee time to collect payment.
“Not a lot of people have exactly seven dollars in their pockets,” said CPW Statewide Business Operations Coordinator Kirk Teklits. “As far as customer service goes, being able to pay by credit card is definitely a desirable service option.
The kiosks can also sell annual state park passes. The machine prints a receipt the customer can bring in to a CPW office to redeem for their annual pass.
Teklits said 15 stations are currently installed at nine parks and more will be coming later this summer.
“This helps our state parks become more modernized,” Teklits said. “Most of the kiosks run on solar power, provide multiple sales channels to our customers, and help our staff with money collection and counting. It also helps our law enforcement officers quickly determine who has bought a pass and who hasn’t.”
Teklits said there have already been more than 800 daily passes and 55 annual passes sold through the kiosks since the first ones were installed June 13. The kiosks accept Visa, Mastercard and Discover cards.
