As Tourism Jasper prepares for an increase in visitors this year compared to 2020 and 2021 as restrictions begin to ease, particularly those involving the border, the organizations president and CEO, says he thought the Alberta town would have been hit worse by the pandemic than it was.
“It still wasn’t good, but we have a pretty sharp pencil when it comes to the impact that COVID (has had on Jasper),” says James Jackson. “It hasn’t been easy, but Jasper has performed disproportionately better than a lot of other destinations within our competitive set, within other leisure mountain destinations, like Banff, Whistler, Mont-Tremblant (and) some American destinations as well.”
Jackson believes several factors help explain why Jasper has fared better.
“Simply put, the regional market, our core market in the winter historically speaking, was unable to leave, and so because of that awareness of Jasper and the product, they were captive,” Jackson says. “They couldn’t obviously leave the country, but they were aware of Jasper, so they came in the summer, which sort of backfilled about half of what we would normally experience, which is something to celebrate.”
Jackson notes that historically Jasper can be a challenging destination for attracting southern Albertans, but by leaning into their marketing efforts, Tourism Jasper and its partners used the stunning drive along the Icefields Parkway (banner photo) to great advertising advantage.
“At the same time, we invested at Tourism Jasper a lot of money in southern Alberta, because we knew that we would have a higher capture rate in northern Alberta, and B.C.,” he said.
“But in Calgary, specifically, we knew that we could compete at a more competitive level with Banff, and so (Tourism Jasper) and a variety of other partners really targeted (the city), and we definitely saw (results) over the last two summers.”
Tourism Jasper is already seeing bookings pacing at a strong rate this season.
Jackson says he expects a strong summer because of the potential for inbound international travellers with the lifting of the federal requirement for a negative PCR test.
However, he adds that there remains a strong domestic component to tourism numbers in Jasper.
“What we’re seeing from a Canadian sentiment perspective (is) the majority of Canadians still aren’t quite ready to hop on a plane and go to Europe or on a long-haul trip. So, we’re going to still see a significant amount of domestic visitation into Jasper, and that, combined with the international pent-up demand that we’ll experience, will create a very busy summer.”
Jackson adds that bookings made for 2020 and 2021 were never fully refunded, and instead were rolled over into 2022, and so most of these pre-arranged trips are still on tour operators’ books.
With the increased numbers of visitors comes an increased demand on Jasper’s businesses and facilities, Jackson says the town will be able to accommodate the increased tourism numbers, provided that staff are in place to deliver the services.
Acknowledging that staffing can be a serious weakness for a town marketing itself as a tourist destination, Jackson explains that in addition to marketing Jasper as a destination for travellers, Tourism Jasper is running a similar campaign targetting Ontario and Quebec to attract workers.
“It will look and feel a lot like a tourism campaign, but instead of saying ‘spend your vacation in Jasper,’ it’s saying come and work in Jasper,” he says.
“I think the challenge this summer will be serving the demand, so ensuring that we have an adequate and appropriately rested workforce – that will be our biggest challenge this year. It won’t be about demand.”
Jackson adds that Jasper still had reason to celebrate despite the challenges and hardships from COVID.
“We have reason to celebrate not only the quality of the product in attracting visitors here, but in how the community came together, and how we got through this as a cohesive unit,” he says. “If we remind ourselves about that, we’ll be just fine.”
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