Alberta tourism continuing to grow after strongest pandemic rebound in Canada

Andrew Jeffrey · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 07, 2025 10:43 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Alberta's tourism assemblage has rebounded and grown much rapidly than immoderate different state successful the country, and manufacture representatives spot much country for growth, adjacent arsenic a commercialized warfare with its astir fashionable planetary marketplace heats up.

Recent years person seen the province's tourism assemblage grow, with Travel Alberta reporting visitant spending totalled $11.5 cardinal from January to September past year. That marked a 10 per cent summation from the aforesaid play successful 2023, the astir among each provinces.

The state says its connected way to deed its $13.4-billion extremity successful visitant spending past year, with a larger imaginativeness successful caput for the assemblage to reach $25 cardinal by 2035.

Tannis Gaffney, Travel Alberta's main selling officer, told CBC Radio's The Homestretch connected Monday that much nonstop flights to Alberta hav helped boost planetary tourism, and that the wealthiness of outdoor tourer destinations makes it an planetary draw. She pointed retired Alberta boasts six UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the astir of immoderate province.

"We instrumentality it for granted, and it's conscionable extracurricular successful our backyard that we person these astonishing not lone taste gems, but truly beauteous experiences that radical enactment connected their bucket database for years," Gaffney said.

Representatives of the province's tourism assemblage are gathering crossed the state this month, successful a Tourism Town Hall bid popping up successful 4 locations from April 3 to April 15. On Monday, they sat down astatine the Hangar Flight Museum successful Calgary to speech manufacture trends and maturation opportunities.

Growth boosted by Indigenous experiences, nonstop flights

The maturation successful the province's tourer options has partially worked to support travellers visiting for longer, Tourism Industry Association of Alberta CEO Darren Reeder says, alternatively than making it a speedy halt en way to British Columbia.

"Traditionally what's happened is simply a batch of long-distance visitors travel to Alberta, they walk a fewer days and past spell to British Columbia. We privation them to auger their full abrogation present successful Alberta," Reeder said.

While Alberta's nationalist parks and the Rocky Mountains person agelong been fashionable destinations, tourism officials point to newer developments they judge are driving maturation similar Nordic spas successful Canmore and Kananaskis, oregon converted atom silos into accommodations connected farms adjacent Pincher Creek.

The manufacture has besides responded positively to Alberta's caller All-Seasons Resorts Act. The bill created a caller regulator for all-seasons resorts connected nationalist land, of which determination are presently none, to boost tourism extracurricular of summertime.

Officials besides constituent to precocious request for Indigenous offerings for tourists, that's increasing crossed Canada, but peculiarly successful Alberta.

Indigenous Tourism Alberta CEO Chelsea Quirk said one-in-three planetary visitors privation these offerings, with higher request among Canadian travellers — particularly successful younger generations. She said her enactment looks to guarantee the offerings for tourists are culturally due and coming from Indigenous-led groups and entrepreneurs.

"When we got to people, it has to beryllium what they privation to be. We tin assistance them good tune those things and springiness them the programming they request to bash it, but it has to  travel from the community," Quirk said.

U.S. travellers inactive a increasing market

The state that Alberta sees the astir planetary visitors from is the U.S., which Reeder said is simply a inactive steadily increasing market, adjacent amid a commercialized warfare betwixt the 2 countries.

Reeder said helium inactive expects the U.S. marketplace to turn further for his industry.

"Americans person ever travelled successful the look of having a reasonably beardown presence, politically speaking, elsewhere successful the satellite and that has not deterred them," Reeder  said. 

"I deliberation from a Canadian tourism [perspective], from an Alberta tourism perspective, we're present to invited them. We tin transcend politics."