Tourism Saskatchewan said it expects future growth for the province’s tourism industry as travel demand skyrockets.
“It’s a very interesting time economically,” said Tourism Saskatchewan CEO Jonathan Potts. “There’s obviously high inflation, higher interest rates and people are used to less money in people’s pockets, but it does help keep our domestic market close to home and travelling around Saskatchewan.”
The industry hit $2.4 billion in expenditures in 2022, well above the $1.8-billion projection.
“Our goal as an industry is to get to $3.3 billion in business expenditures by the end of 2030, which would be a 50 per cent increase over this year,” said Tourism Saskatchewan CEO Jonathan Potts.
Potts said that for the projected growth to happen in the industry, they need to rely on both domestic and international travel, which have gone up in price this year.
According to Uniglobe Travel, the average plane ticket price for anyone departing between June 1 and Aug. 31, 2022, was about $30 lower than it is during the same months in 2023.
“It’s fairly similar in pricing, about $1,000 versus about $970 last year. So, it’s a slight increase but not quite as big as we were seeing when we looked at the first half of the year,” said Uniglobe president Jamie Milton.
During the first six months of 2022, compared with the same months in 2023, prices increased by about $150. The data comes from a combination of all local air data, including domestic and international travel.
Milton said reduced capacity on airlines caused the price spike.
WestJet is currently the most prominent airline at Saskatchewan airports, after Air Canada, Sunwing and Flair either cancelled routes or abandoned the province’s runways entirely.
WestJet has absorbed Sunwing’s operations and aircraft and Flair and Air Canada both cancelled their routes to Calgary.
“We are starting to see the international flight prices slowly come down, planning for the fall is starting to get a little bit better as well but for any of those last-minute flights throughout the summer, they are quite full. It is a peak, busy travel time throughout Canada,” Milton said.
Randy Kershaw with the Waskeskiu Chamber said business is booming at Prince Albert National Park with Saskatchewan residents trying to stay in the province.
“There are so many things to do here that don’t cost money,” Kershaw said. “From the beautiful new playground to the disc golf down in the park, there are all sorts of things people can do, trails, hiking, swimming, fishing.”
Kershaw said that they have seen a massive boom in visitors since COVID-19.
“The more people that discover Waskesiu come back and bring their family, we have so many new Canadians that have discovered the Prince Albert National Park that just love it here and the park is always jammed on weekends.”