Tourism a much-needed bright spot for Alberta’s lagging economy

[A view of Banff’s main thoroughfare at dusk/Reuters]

Alberta is reeling from the downturn in the oil industry, but there is one economic bright spot in the province: Banff National Park and other Albertan destinations are currently having a banner year, despite rising unemployment rates and decreased oil revenues.

“Last year, our national parks had an incredibly strong year,” Shelley Grollmuss, vice-president of industry development for Tourism Alberta, tells Yahoo Canada News.

Increased visitors to the parks, and other destinations in Alberta, from recreational travel helped to offset some of the decrease in business travel resulting from the downturn in the resource industry, Grollmuss says.

“We really want to grow tourism in Alberta,” Grollmuss says. “Even though parts of our economy may not be prospering as well as we’d like them to, that also presents an opportunity.”

And while the weak Canadian dollar hurts the resource industry, which is already struggling due to significantly reduced oil revenues, it appears to be encouraging both Canadians and Americans to visit Alberta destinations.

For example, Banff National Park saw 31 per cent more Canadian travellers in 2015 than the year before, Grollmuss says, and 22 per cent more American travellers.

Leslie Bruce, president and CEO of Banff and Lake Louise Tourism, agrees that the weak loonie is benefiting Banff National Park.

Total visitors to the park are expected to hit 3.8 million by the end of the Parks Canada fiscal year in May 2016, she says. That’s compared to 3.5 million for the same period the year before.

Albertans are also coming to the park in higher numbers, Bruce says, despite Wednesday’s report from the Conference Board of Canada that the province’s economy is expected to shrink for the second year in a row.

“My belief is that people still have a need or an urge to travel or take a break from the day to day,” Bruce says. “So we’re seeing even Albertans were up 27 per cent last year in the park.”

Benefits across the province

More visitors from abroad are also arriving. Vacationers from Germany and the United Kingdom are up modestly from last year, Bruce says.

Moreover, visitors from China were up 25 per cent in the summer and fall, which bodes well for the popularity of a Hunan-Calgary direct flight route launching later this year.

Other Albertan attractions are also seeing increased numbers in recreational tourists. Visits to Drumheller, the site of the Royal Tyrrell Museum, for example, did well this winter, Grollmuss says.

Tourism is providing a boost to destinations in northern Alberta, Grollmuss says, which has been hit particularly hard by the resource industry slump.

The Phillip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum opened in Grand Prairie to considerable fanfare this past September.

Tourism and consumer services make up 4.3 per cent of the Alberta economy, and brought $7.4 billion to the province’s economy in 2012, according to the provincial government. The sector provides 127,000 jobs, Grollmuss says, and makes up a small but significant part of the province’s economy.

“No one industry can offset oil prices and what’s happening in the resource centre,” Grollmuss says, “but tourism is more important than ever.”