As Canada’s visitor economy struggles with declining international arrivals, Alberta emerges as the nation’s brightest tourism success story—proving that deliberate investment, product diversification, and air access expansion can outperform markets twice its size
Calgary, Alberta (Tourism Reporter) — In a global tourism landscape marked by economic uncertainty, geopolitical tension, and fierce destination competition, Alberta has delivered results that read less like a regional success story and more like a blueprint for modern destination management excellence. The western Canadian province announced this week that visitor spending reached $15.2 billion in 2025—a new all-time record that represents more than six per cent growth in a year when the national average hovered at approximately four per cent.
More striking still: Alberta was the only major Canadian province to record growth in overseas arrivals in 2025, posting three per cent growth whilst Canada as a whole saw arrivals decline by two per cent. The province also bucked national trends in the critical United States market, growing American visitor numbers by nearly five per cent against a national contraction of six per cent.
For destination management organisations, tourism boards, and government officials worldwide grappling with stagnant growth, overtourism backlash, or post-pandemic recovery plateaus, Alberta’s performance warrants close examination. This is not a story of lucky timing or inherited advantage—it is a case study in deliberate strategy, sustained investment, and the courage to diversify beyond legacy products.
The Higher Ground Strategy: Ambition Meets Execution
At the heart of Alberta’s success lies Higher Ground: A Tourism Sector Strategy, launched by the provincial government in February 2024. The strategy set an audacious target: grow Alberta’s visitor economy from $10 billion in annual expenditure to $25 billion by 2035. To tourism officials accustomed to incremental growth projections and risk-averse planning, the ambition was notable. What has proven more notable is the execution.
Nearly two years into implementation, the numbers validate the approach. Visitor spending grew from $12.7 billion in 2023 to $14.4 billion in 2024—a 12 per cent increase that outpaced the national average by a factor of four. The 2025 figure of $15.2 billion continues that upward trajectory, placing Alberta firmly on track toward its 2035 goal.
“Nearly two years after the launch of Alberta’s Higher Ground tourism sector strategy, we are continuing to see significant growth,” said Andrew Boitchenko, Minister of Tourism and Sport. “Investing in tourism boosts our economy, by supporting thousands of jobs, attracting new investment, and creating opportunities for communities across the province. We will continue to build on this momentum and ensure Alberta remains the best place to live, work, visit, and play.”
The strategy rests on five foundational pillars: leadership and alignment, competitive product development, people and careers, expansion of access, and Indigenous tourism. Critically, it moves beyond the traditional reliance on Alberta’s iconic mountain destinations—Banff and Jasper—to present what officials describe as a “holistic travel experience” that includes winter tourism, rural experiences, Indigenous-led cultural exchanges, and year-round resort development.
A Holistic Approach: Product, Access, and Promotion in Concert
What distinguishes Alberta’s approach from conventional destination marketing is the integration of three growth levers that many destinations treat as separate workstreams: product development, air access expansion, and strategic promotion.
“We are one of the few destination management organizations in the world that have taken a holistic approach to all three key aspects of growth; strategic promotion, increased air access, and product development,” said Linda Southern-Heathcott, Chair of the Travel Alberta Board of Directors. “Our deliberate investment strategy, working as part of Team Alberta with partners and entrepreneurs, is paying impressive dividends for the tourism sector and the Alberta economy as a whole.”
The results bear this out. Travel Alberta’s investments in growth projects in recent years have driven an estimated $155 million in total economic impact. The organisation secured more than 300,000 direct airline seats to Alberta from international and transborder target markets, yielding nearly $11 in visitor spending for every dollar invested in air access development—a return on investment metric that would be the envy of most tourism authorities globally.
Air connectivity has been particularly strategic. Recognising that Alberta cannot rely solely on Calgary and Edmonton as gateways, Travel Alberta has prioritised route development from key source markets in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the United States. This approach directly addresses one of tourism’s most stubborn barriers: the friction of access. If potential visitors cannot easily reach a destination, no amount of marketing will convert intent into arrivals.
On the product side, Alberta has made deliberate investments in winter tourism experiences and rural destination development—segments historically underdeveloped compared to summer mountain tourism. The strategy includes creating all-season, year-round resort development zones and expanding current seasonal recreational areas into four-season resorts. By instituting clear and commercially viable land-use policies, the government aims to attract private-sector investment into high-demand tourism products across the province, not just in established hotspots.
Outperforming National Trends: The Data Behind the Success
Alberta’s growth is even more impressive when set against national and competitive provincial benchmarks.
In 2025, whilst Canada’s international arrivals fell by two per cent, Alberta posted three per cent growth in overseas arrivals. The province also outperformed peers in the crucial U.S. market—recording nearly five per cent growth in American visitor numbers against a six per cent national decline.
The pattern holds across multiple years. In 2023, international visitor spending in Alberta surpassed pre-pandemic levels, injecting $2.9 billion into the provincial economy—a 25 per cent increase over the 2019 high of $2.3 billion. International expenditures grew by 91 per cent year-over-year in 2023, faster than British Columbia (81 per cent), Ontario (77 per cent), and Quebec (63 per cent).
By 2024, total visitor spending had reached $14.4 billion, a 12 per cent increase over 2023’s $12.8 billion. The latest 2025 figure of $15.2 billion represents more than six per cent growth—again outpacing the national average of approximately four per cent.
Tourism is now Alberta’s fourth-largest driver of international trade and employs 10 per cent of Albertans. According to the provincial government, the tourism industry supported more than 85,000 jobs in Alberta in 2024 alone.
Community Buy-In: The Social License to Grow
One of the most significant—and often overlooked—challenges in destination development is maintaining community support as visitor numbers grow. Many destinations that have aggressively pursued tourism growth have faced resident backlash, from Barcelona’s water-pistol protests to Venice’s day-tripper taxes.
Alberta appears to have secured something increasingly rare in the tourism sector: genuine community buy-in. According to Travel Alberta’s recent resident sentiment survey, 81 per cent of Albertans believe tourism contributes positively to the province’s economic wellbeing, and two-thirds believe that tourism is important to their local community.
This social license is not accidental. The Higher Ground strategy explicitly prioritises sustainable and regenerative tourism initiatives that enhance community development, particularly in emerging destinations. The framework emphasises that tourism’s benefits extend beyond economic contributions to include environmental stewardship, cultural awareness, and reconciliation with Indigenous communities.
Authentic Indigenous tourism experiences, in particular, are positioned as opportunities for cultural exchange that further understanding and support for reconciliation—a priority that resonates deeply in a Canadian context but offers lessons for destinations worldwide grappling with questions of cultural authenticity, inclusivity, and shared prosperity.
Recognition and Momentum: Global Accolades Reinforce Growth
Alberta’s performance has not gone unnoticed in international tourism circles. In November 2025, the province was named Most Desirable Region in the World by the UK’s Wanderlust magazine in the 2025 edition of the Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards—the UK’s largest consumer-voted travel awards.
The accolade is significant not merely for its prestige but for what it signals: Alberta is successfully shifting global perception. Historically positioned in the shadow of British Columbia’s coastal appeal or overshadowed by central Canada’s urban centres, Alberta is emerging as a destination defined not by proximity to other Canadian attractions but by its own distinct value proposition.
That value proposition increasingly includes year-round experiences. In February 2026, Alberta is set to welcome 300 top German travel agents as part of the 51st annual DERTOUR Campus Academy—an immersive winter cultural experience designed to showcase Alberta’s cold-weather tourism products to one of Europe’s most influential outbound markets.
These initiatives reflect a sophisticated understanding of distribution strategy: educating and inspiring travel trade intermediaries is often more effective than direct consumer marketing, particularly in long-haul markets where travellers rely heavily on agent recommendations.
The Entrepreneurship Dividend: Investment Follows Performance
Strong tourism performance creates a virtuous cycle: success attracts investment, which in turn enables product development, which drives further growth. Alberta is seeing this dynamic play out in real time.
In October 2025, Travel Alberta reported receiving hundreds of applications for its tourism investment programmes, signalling robust industry innovation amid record growth. The demand for support reflects confidence in the sector’s trajectory and a recognition that Alberta’s visitor economy offers genuine commercial opportunity.
Private-sector investment is flowing into new tourism products across the province. All-season resort developments, rural experiences, Indigenous-led cultural tourism, and urban visitor infrastructure are all seeing increased entrepreneurial activity. This is precisely the outcome the Higher Ground strategy was designed to catalyse: creating conditions where private capital views tourism investment in Alberta as attractive and viable.
Challenges Remain: Workforce, Wildfire, and the Path Ahead
Alberta’s success story is not without its challenges. The province faces ongoing labour shortages and housing affordability issues that threaten workforce sustainability—problems endemic to tourism sectors globally but particularly acute in regions experiencing rapid growth.
The devastating Jasper wildfire in 2024 had lasting impacts on one of Alberta’s signature mountain destinations, underscoring the vulnerability of nature-based tourism to climate-related disasters. Recovery efforts continue, but the incident serves as a reminder that even high-performing destinations must build resilience into their strategies.
Additionally, Alberta faces a domestic tourism expenditure deficit of $1.6 billion as of 2023, with British Columbia remaining a fierce competitor for Canadian travellers. Capturing more in-province spending from Albertans themselves—encouraging residents to holiday at home rather than crossing into neighbouring provinces—remains a strategic priority.
Lessons for the Global Tourism Sector
For destination management organisations, tourism authorities, and government officials worldwide, Alberta’s trajectory offers several transferable insights:
1. Integrated strategy works. Treating product development, air access, and promotion as interconnected rather than siloed functions produces measurably better results.
2. Diversification reduces risk. Moving beyond legacy products and seasonal concentration creates resilience and expands the addressable market.
3. Ambitious targets drive action. The $25 billion by 2035 goal may have seemed unrealistic in 2024, but it has galvanised stakeholders and provided a north star for investment decisions.
4. Community support is non-negotiable. Securing social license through transparent communication, equitable benefit distribution, and respect for local quality of life is as important as visitor numbers.
5. Air access is infrastructure. Treating airline route development as critical infrastructure—not merely a marketing add-on—yields outsized returns.
6. Data-driven decision-making matters. Alberta’s approach is grounded in rigorous measurement, transparent reporting, and evidence-based investment allocation.
Conclusion: A Model Worth Studying
Alberta’s $15.2 billion in visitor spend for 2025 is more than a number—it is proof of concept for a deliberate, multi-year strategy that prioritised investment over incrementalism and integration over isolation. In a sector often characterised by short-term thinking, Alberta has demonstrated the value of long-term vision executed with discipline.
For tourism officials in destinations large and small, the message is clear: growth is possible, even in challenging macroeconomic conditions, if the strategy is sound, the investment is sustained, and the commitment to holistic development is genuine.
As global tourism continues to evolve—shaped by climate change, shifting traveller preferences, technological disruption, and geopolitical realignment—Alberta’s success offers a roadmap. It is a roadmap that recognises tourism not as an extractive industry but as a tool for prosperity, connection, and shared progress.
The world, it seems, does indeed want more Alberta. And Alberta, it appears, is ready to deliver.
Data sources: Travel Alberta, Destination Canada Lodging Aligned Spend Reporting (January 2026), Statistics Canada. Final 2025 estimates expected Spring 2026.
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