A busy summer travel season and a record-breaking Calgary Stampede have led to a significant rise in the number of international tourists visiting Calgary.
Tourism Calgary has shared its latest numbers, which show that as many as 8.7 million people will pass through the city by the end of the year, leading to an estimated economic impact of $3.2 billion.
Much of that spending can be attributed to a 17 per cent increase in the number of international travellers, many of whom are visiting from the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States and Mexico.
Some of those from overseas took in the Calgary Stampede, which broke its all-time attendance record with 1,477,953 people passing through the gates.
Tourism Calgary’s vice-president of marketing, Jeff Hesselc, said that while the international numbers are encouraging, the growth of domestic tourism is not keeping pace.
“As people are now heading further afield and going to other destinations around the world, we are seeing a little bit of a softening there,” Hessel said.
Hessel adds that while domestic tourism rose by 4.5 per cent, that growth is slower than in years past.
Calgary’s tourism industry is also focusing on lengthening the travel season by trying to attract more tourists during the spring and fall months, something the new BMO Centre expansion should be able to help with.
“Meetings and conventions is a really big area of growth,” Hessel said. “The BMO Centre (expansion) opened up in June, and so we’re looking at ways of bringing in conventions and events at times of the year like September and in the spring, so that we can actually bring more people to Calgary throughout the entire year.”
Hessel says the city is already set to host 25 large meetings or conventions in September alone.