The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is underway on implementing $8.5 million worth of improvements at the Keith J. Charters Traverse City State Park, including accessibility upgrades, facility modernizations, and brand-new camping amenities. While the campground has been open since April 1, the 2025 season will be an abbreviated one, with the park set to close on Monday, July 7, immediately following this year’s National Cherry Festival. The campground will then remain shuttered for the entirety of the 2026 season.

Just how impactful will a season and a half worth of lost camping be for Traverse City’s tourism economy? The Ticker crunches the numbers and comes up with some estimates.

Numbers and estimates

348: Existing campsites at Keith J. Charters.

133,000: Individual campers tallied at the Traverse City State Park throughout the entire 2024 camping season, from April 1 through November 30. According to the DNR’s Stephanie Rosinski, unit supervisor for both the Keith J. Charters State Park and the Leelanau State Park in Northport, those campers were spread across approximately 41,000 campsite bookings.

6.4%: Traffic increase at the State Park campground between 2023 and 2024. For reference, during the same April through November season in 2023, the campground saw 125,000 campers across 38,000 campsite bookings.

3.24: Average number of campers per occupied campsite during the 2024 season.

10,000: Campsite bookings at Keith J. Charters in the month of July alone, for both 2023 and 2024 – good for a 93 percent park occupancy rate. Based on month-to-month traffic breakdowns provided to The Ticker by Rosinski, July is the busiest month at the campground each season, accounting for nearly a quarter of total annual bookings.

18,000: Approximate number of campsite bookings at Traverse City State Park in the last four months of the season, from August 1 through the end of November. While November is the slowest month of the year for camping (the State Park only saw 314 bookings for that month last year), August is bigger than June (9,000 bookings in 2024, versus 7,000 for June), and September and October are each on pace with or slightly ahead of May.

25,000*: The Ticker’s estimate for how many State Park campsite bookings could be lost this year due to the early closure, based on 2025 numbers. This approximation assumes that one-third of July’s traffic comes from Cherry Festival week.

65,000*: The Ticker’s estimate for how many visitors Traverse City could lose across the season-and-a-half closure at the State Park campground. That number incorporates both the above estimate, of 25,000* lost campsite bookings this year, as well as an estimated full-season booking number of 40,000* campsites for the 2026 season. Applying the average of 3.24 people per campsite, that booking number would equate to a loss of approximately 210,000* tourists to the area over the next two summers.

$272: Average spending per camping party, in a 24-hour period, according to the Traverse City State Park’s general management plan from 2021. “Campers from a single vehicle reported spending an average of $272 in the 24 hours prior to being surveyed, with 94% spending something within 20 miles of the park,” the management plan noted. “The greatest average amounts were for restaurant/bar meals and drinks, lodging fees, and food and beverages from a store.”

2-3: The most common length of stay, in nights, for campers at Traverse City State Park, according to the 2021 general management plan.

$35.36 million*: The Ticker’s estimate for total visitor spending loss across 2025 and 2026 due to the closure of the campground at Keith J. Charters, assuming 65,000* lost campsite bookings, $272 in daily spending per camping party, and a 48-hour average stay.

*Estimated numbers

Commentary

When asked whether DNR employees are encouraging would-be Traverse City campers to book elsewhere in the northern Michigan region to keep those tourism dollars local, Rosinski notes that the DNR’s reservation system only allows for occasional redirects.

“If we are called directly, we would suggest Interlochen, Mitchell [in Cadillac], Young [in Boyne City], or Leelanau,” Rosinski tells The Ticker. “Roughly 85 percent of our reservations are made online but when people call the call center, the agents are pretty good about trying to help book in the same area with similar amenities.”

While campgrounds aren’t under the purview of Traverse City Tourism (TCT), which is funded by an assessment on local hotel rooms and certain short-term rentals, TCT President and CEO Trevor Tkach says he’s keeping an eye on “overall economic impact numbers and total visitorship” with regards to the State Park campground closure.

“Anytime you take away an option, it's a lost customer,” Tkach says. “And you can’t convert a camper. If somebody's coming to camp, they're going to try to find a campsite. It’s not ‘I can't find a campground in Traverse City, so I guess I’ll get a hotel in Traverse City.’ It’s “I guess now I'm going to St. Ignace or Pictured Rocks.’”

While Tkach is hopeful would-be Traverse City campers will opt for one of the nearby options Rosinski mentioned, he’s skeptical that those areas will have the space to take in much overflow traffic.

“There’s maybe not even an alternative to camp nearby, because we're often at maximum capacity in the region in the summertime,” Tkach says. “So, it's just lost revenue for the city and for the region. You can’t replace it. It’d be a different story if we weren't at that level of capacity. But in the summer, the campsites here are sold. You can’t go to a KOA or another campground nearby, because that place is probably already at capacity.”

“It’s just unfortunate,” Tkach concludes. “I mean, I completely get it: you’ve got to take care of the campground. But a lot of people will be sad to see that shuttered, and we will definitely see an economic impact.”