Travel Alberta Road Show

Tourism is on many people’s minds as summer approaches. Travel Alberta’s Road Show came to Lethbridge on Wednesday bringing people in tourism together to help prepare for the big season.

From the prairies to the mountains, tourism is big business in Alberta. According to Travel Alberta, 35 million people travel in the province each year.

“This past year we reached $7.9 billion in revenues for the province of Alberta,” said Wade Harper, Travel Alberta’s executive director international. “Our target is actually $10.3 by 2020.”

Travel Alberta promotes and markets tourism in the province. Chinook Country in southern Alberta is a key destination for travelers.

“We’re about second in Canada as far as the concentration of good tourist attractions,” said Chinook Country executive director Nikolaus Wyslouzil. “We have a number of world heritage sites through UNESCO, such as Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump and others. We have very unique things like Frank Slide, the Japanese Gardens that are all very, very unique. We’re not that far from provincial parks. Writing on Stone is a phenomenal place, you know. It is very unique in its own right and it ties very well into things like Dinosaur Provincial Park, even the Royal Tyrell. They also have a small dinosaur museum in Warner.”

He said the competition for tourism dollars is fierce and a challenge for smaller and rural areas that don’t make a lot of money because they’re not large. Wyslouzil said they rely on provincial and national partners for promotion. The Canadian Tourism Commission is a national partner that promotes Alberta overseas and in other long haul markets. Travel Alberta is a provincial partner working in Alberta, Canada and other short haul markets.

Harper said marketing is vital for tourism. “It involves having a healthy brand, which we do, when we launched our Remember to Breathe campaign,” he said, “but it’s also about going into the new world which is of course digital and social media which more and more is the most compelling way to attract people to come to the province because they are on social media so much.

Travel Alberta’s Road Show road show also launched a framework for cooperation between Tourism, Parks and Recreation. Travel Alberta and industry. It will provide innovation, marketing, alignment, collaboration and research to help make tourism in Alberta the best that it can be.