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On Alberta’s mountainous western edge, champagne powder, hot springs and evergreen forests are enhancing the Canadian province cushion the pain of the oil-induced recession.
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Banff National Park is on the right track for record attendance this season as Canada’s oldest park adds new attractions such as heated ski chairlifts and ladders to help climbers scale the peaks. Nearby, the story-book castle that’s home to the Banff Springs Hotel is packed with tourists from around the world. It’s a rare source of positive news inside a Canadian province whose economy is forecast to contract for a second year in 2016.
“The mountain parks are undoubtedly the busiest parks, with Banff undoubtedly getting the most critical tourist use,” said Daniel Watson, ceo of Parks Canada, the government agency that oversees the world’s largest park system, by phone from Ottawa. “Canada has truly some of the most remarkable places on earth.”
With Alberta’s oil-driven economy suffering from a large number of job losses, billions of dollars of foregone investment and little prospect of the return to the boom days of yesteryear decade, a 17 per cent slide within the Canadian dollar over the past 2 yrs is stoking tourism — and the long-standing debate over development versus conservation in Banff, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Unlike Alberta’s main oil industry, which makes up about one fourth of the provincial economy and it has attracted more than $100 billion in investment in the last decade, Banff has been careful to develop at a slower pace. Established in 1885, the park hosts about 80 grizzly bears, elk and alpine wildflowers.
It’s been slowly introducing new adventures for tourists. Attendance is expected to rise 7.4 per cent to three.86 million tourists in the entire year ending March 31, 2016 following a 10 % rise in the year before, according to Parks Canada projections. That’s probably the most since a minimum of 2000 once the federal agency changed the way it counted visitors.
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Alberta’s provincial government looks to tourism to help offset a devastating gas and oil slump, planning to boost revenue from visitors to the province by about 25 per cent to more than $10 billion by 2020. Tourism accounts for about 4.3 percent from the provincial economy with a lot of the activity happening in Banff.
Alberta’s tourism marketing agency is looking to the U.S., Quebec and China to bring more non-Albertan tourists towards the province, said Royce Chwin, chief executive officer of Travel Alberta. The recession is “certainly a danger, but it depends upon just how long it lasts,” he said.
The recently installed via ferrata — a system of ladders on cliffs — on Mt. Norquay allows the ski hill to bring in summer guests along with winter skiers who benefit from the region’s light, powdery snow due to the cold, dry climate.
Canada has truly probably the most remarkable places on the planet.
“It was amazing,” said Michael White, a 52-year-old tech worker from nearby Calgary whose traveling bug has had him to national parks in Asia and Africa. He tried the via ferrata soon after it opened in 2014. “Now I take my friends who arrived at visit.”
Brewster Inc., a tourist company started by two brothers in 1892 to steer visitors with the mountains and today of Phoenix-based Viad Corp., opened the Glacier Skywalk in Jasper National Park in 2014. The glass deck, stretches over a 280-metre cliff (918-foot) and provides views of the Rocky Mountains. About 288 kilometres from Banff, it’s become another hit among tourists.
Brewster, which has had “high-single digit” annual development in visitors since 2009, aims to increase repeat visits by constantly updating the interpretive experience similar to museums while maintaining exactly the same development footprint, Skywalk Chief Executive Officer David McKenna said by phone. “Visitors may come back every 3 to 5 many find something new to re-engage them in the region,” he explained.
Global companies are taking notice. Accor SA, the French hotel operator, agreed to take over the brand and control over the Banff Springs Hotel, one of Canada’s oldest and architecturally most breathtaking resorts, last year. Visits to your accommodation have remained steady and the hotel is gearing up for that busy summer months, said Angela Moore, a spokeswoman.
Not most people are happy with the increasing quantity of visitors to the park. New construction such as the via ferrata and also the Skywalk has prompted opposition from environmentalists arguing for protection of grizzly bears.
Greater reliance upon tourism in Alberta means the federal government needs to promote other areas of the province to ensure Banff’s environment doesn’t become compromised, said Peter Poole, a conservationist who has worked with indigenous groups to protect land and runs Arctos & Bird, a Banff-based project management software firm.
“A core element has to be conservation,” he explained within an interview in the town. “As selling visitors an incorrect hope plus they arrived at the park and it’s all being turned inverted from development pressures, the visitors are likely to leave dismayed and won’t return.”
In addition, the city of Banff continues to be plagued by a shortage of housing as growth pops up against limits imposed by Parks Canada, which sets the rules for growth in nature. That’s been partially alleviated through the discharge of lands through the park for brand new housing, said Banff Mayor Karen Sorensen.
For now, clients are booming. And unlike the gas and oil industry, which is struggling in foreign markets due to a lack of pipelines or liquefied natural gas facilities, Banff has already been winning Asian and European customers.
Bloomberg News
