The number of tourists to visit Banff National Park was up 10.4 per cent to 3.6 million visitors last year – the busiest in 15 years for Canada’s flagship national park.
According to figures released by Parks Canada, the number of people entering the park’s east gate during Parks Canada’s fiscal year from April 2014 to March 2015 went from almost 3.3 million to 3.6 million.
Tourism operators are celebrating news of increased businesses and, in turn, increased revenues, while conservationists raise concerns about the effects of growth on visitor experience and the surrounding park environment.
Parks Canada officials say some of the biggest increases, percentage wise, occurred during winter months.
“We certainly had a sense that visitation was strong, but didn’t realize it was around 10 per cent until the numbers came out,” said Dave McDonough, superintendent of Banff National Park.
McDonough said Parks Canada attributes part of the jump in visitor numbers to strong promotion of the winter and shoulder seasons. The figures show visitation in December, January, February and March were up 13, eight, 14 and 10 per cent, respectively.
He said Parks Canada worked hard with the tourism industry to promote opportunities for visitors, including track set cross-country ski trails, snowshoeing and special events such as SnowDays and Ice Magic are proving to be a big draw.
“It shows, which is positive news, that Canadians are not only coming in summer months but really recognize the great opportunities that we have in the shoulder and winter seasons,” McDonough said.
Parks Canada’s management plan has a goal to increase the number of visitors to Banff National Park by two per cent a year. It was a controversial part of the plan, given previous studies had indicated rising visitation could put too much pressure on the park and its wildlife.
The park has been seeing at least a 2.5 per cent increase every year for the past five years, except for a dip of 1.1 per cent in 2013-2014, largely because of the June 2013 floods that took out portions of the Trans-Canada Highway and shut off east access to the park for about a week.
Last June, however, saw visitor numbers climb by 41 per cent to 300,000 that month, more than making up for the previous flood-affected June when visitation was down 20 per cent.
July and August were the busiest months by far last year, with 560,860 and 633,025 visitors respectively.
Darren Reeder, executive director of Banff Lake Louise Hotel Motel Association, said hoteliers are forecasting visitation numbers will be up again this summer compared to last summer.
“Most importantly, consumer confidence remains strong despite the challenges that persist in the oil and gas sector,” he said. “As Alberta’s population continues to grow, Banff National Park certainly benefits from the number of new Albertans that desire to visit the park often. Regional visitation overall remains strong.”
Reeder said relatively low gas prices combined with a lower Canadian dollar also sets the stage for increased visitors from the United States.
“That the U.S. dollar goes further here can also have the desired effect of U.S. travellers spending more than they would have otherwise budgeted, particularly if the experience and service they receive exceeds expectations,” he said.
The biggest challenge heading into another busy summer relates to labour, said Reeder.
“We continue to struggle to fill some of the positions that were more readily occupied when we had more Temporary Foreign Workers in the destination,” he said.
“This strains supervisory and management staff and brings us back to the days when senior management had to drop other aspects of running their business to make beds and mop floors.”
Conservationists are raising concerns about the number of visitors and the effects that has on visitor experience and the surrounding national park environment, including on wildlife like grizzly bears.
Colleen Campbell, president of Bow Valley Naturalists, said increasing visitor numbers to the park every year is not sustainable, and should not be the only means of measuring success.
“We’re focused on quantity, not quality. We’re not talking about visitor experience anymore, we’re just talking about visitor numbers,” she said. “Is anyone measuring visitor happiness?”
With a dramatic increase in visitor numbers, Campbell said she worries there will be more rescues, as well as more speeders on park highways and roads. As well, park staff will struggle to keep up with basic things like keeping public washrooms in an acceptable state.
She said more visitors, coupled with commercial special events, also means increasing traffic gridlock in the Banff townsite, which not only affects visitor experience, but also affects the quality of life for residents of Banff.
“I don’t go and see my friends in Banff on the weekend anymore,” she said. “Last time I did that it took me 45 minutes to get from the Trans-Canada Highway to Valleyview.”
Campbell said increasing numbers of people affect the surrounding national park environment and wildlife, such as grizzly bears, that need space and security.
For example, last year, the number of wildlife conflict occurrences in the park hit an all-time high. There were 1,250 wildlife conflict occurrences in the Banff field, with almost half of them involving black and grizzly bears. That compares to 924 occurrences in 2013.
“What are we doing to the wildlife that people come here to see?” Campbell said.
“We always talk about the carrying capacity of the landscape, but we’ve never talked about carrying capacity for people.”
According to east gate figures, group tour visitors were up 15.2 per cent last year over the previous year to 265,176, while the number of independent visitors grew from just over three million to about 3.3 million.
Heading into this summer season, Kurt Shroeder, communications and marketing manager for Banff Lake Louise Tourism, said Banff is seeing favourable trends across all markets, including from across Canada, the U.S, Europe, Asia and Australia.
“Whether it’s lodging or restaurants, generally speaking we’re hearing favourable early counts and favourable bookings across the summer,” he said.
Shroeder said BBLT and industry partners such as Travel Alberta and the Canadian Tourism Commission have worked hard to promote Banff and believes that’s reflected in increased visitation.
“We were very aggressive on the winter marketing front and I would like to believe we have made an impact there,” he said.
“I think over the this past winter season it was a very bumpy road for many parts of western North America. Our snowfall was slightly below average, but there were many areas dramatically below. We had a strong ski season and skied right to the end.”
Shroeder said the organization’s biggest strategy remains focused on building visitation over winter months. “That’s where we know we can grow,” he said.
Stavros Karlos, a local businessman and Banff town councillor, said he believes the increase in visitation last year was due to a combination of factors.
“Anecdotally, I felt like there were more American visitors in Banff and continued strength in the Alberta market; I believe those two markets drove that visitation,” he said.
“I do have concerns about a slowdown in the Alberta economy. The only thing that might offset that is maybe people stay closer to home. If we had the same summer as last summer, I’d be really happy.”
But with increasing numbers of people in private vehicles, Karlos does have concerns with visitor experience in the Banff townsite.
He said paid parking and free public transit should be implemented.
“That’s the way we can make the visitor experience in downtown Banff even better. If there is one thing that we can do to make a difference, it is making getting around in our community easier,” he said.
“I don’t think business can get much busier if we don’t find a better solution to traffic management in our community.”
According to Parks Canada, visitors to national parks and historic sites across the country spend close to $3 billion every year. In Canada, the tourism industry is an $88.5 billion-a-year industry, and employs more than 625,000 Canadians.
