Tourism Canmore Kananaskis Releases Action Plan
Greg Colgan
Rocky Mountain Outlook
KANANASKIS COUNTRY – A new plan is aiming to help promote respectful tourism practices as the provincial government has prioritized the industry’s growth in the coming years.
Tourism Canmore Kananaskis (TCK) released its 2025-27 regenerative tourism action plan, which outlines several goals and action items to take place in the coming years.
Rachel Ludwig, TCK’s CEO, said the plan is designed to help become leaders in sustainable tourism by 2029 and to have a “big impact in a short period of time.”
“It’s really designed to get us on our way in becoming leaders in achieving sustainable tourism,” she said.
“We really needed a plan that was aggressive in order to get us where we need to be because we lost years during the pandemic where not much was able to happen.”
The plan – which was released at TCK's annual general meeting April 3 – has four performance areas in environmental, social, supplier and destination management, with specific measurements for each one.
The five main strategies focus on reducing environmental footprint, increasing the role of Indigenous peoples, enhancing year-round profitability, protecting and restoring nature and using storytelling to inform visitors of the importance of the area.
For environmental goals, the aim is to reduce emissions of visitor economy by 30 per cent by 2030 and establish net-zero tourism by 2050.
Ludwig said the organization will sign the United Nations’ Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism as well as find metrics for what the visitor economy contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, then set targets to reduce them.
The Indigenous goal will look to double Indigenous-owned experiences by 2027 and increasing profitability will have TCK continue to advocate for industry, expand shoulder season visitation and secure additional funding.
The organization provides free associate membership to Indigenous members and covers Indigenous Tourism Alberta’s membership.
“It’s little ways to show we’re accountable, but we also want to grow the number of Indigenous tourism businesses in Canmore and Kananaskis,” she said.
“We’re really hoping we can grow Indigenous offerings in the area.”
Under protecting and restoring nature, it will work with visitors to align with the human-wildlife coexistence implementation and action plan and the ongoing Canmore Area Trails Strategy.
“For many visitors to Canmore and Kananaskis, nature is the main event,” the plan states. “Preserving the vitality of the natural world in our region is essential for the growth of our visitor economy and the health of our own community.”
TCK previously completed a 10-year Community Tourism Strategy Plan in 2019, which prioritizes its work on sustainable tourism development and engaging tourists to have regenerative values and practices.
Destination Canada released its report A Regenerative Approach to Tourism in Canada in 2023. Its plan promotes protecting ecosystems, creating relationships, focusing on contributions to the greater community and being stewards of places.
TCK’s plan was informed by the Town of Canmore’s 2021 regenerative tourism framework that came from work by its tourism taskforce that identified key aspects to have tourism thrive and not impact the community or environment.
The tourism agency hired Global Destination Sustainability Movement to look at the area communities using the Global Destination Sustainability Index, which is tied into the United Nations goals for 2030.
A regenerative tourism advisory taskforce of 19 people worked on developing the plan.
“A regenerative tourism industry focuses on enabling renewal in the ecosystems and communities that it touches,” stated the action plan. “In turn, this renewal process helps visitor economies maintain their growth over a long period of time because the resources and community health that the economy depends on are regenerated instead of being depleted.”
To achieve its goals, the plan indicates that getting long-term funding by 2026 is essential to help create projects started by the soon-to-be established committee and taskforce to implement goals and start developing a community education and engagement plan.
Additional goals would be further collaboration and starting a regenerative tourism internship program.
“Our first priority is to secure funding for the work and resources it will take to bring this strategy to life,” stated the plan under the specific goal. “TCK will work with the Town of Canmore to secure additional funding from the provincial government to kick off regenerative tourism action plan initiatives.”
Ludwig said funding will be “incredibly important” and TCK’s board approved using reserves to help achieve goals outlined in the plan. She said the organization is doing financially well and tourism has continued to rebound after the COVID-19 pandemic, with last year before the first visitor spending in the area was above $1 billion.
“We have healthy reserves that we’ve built up since the pandemic and we’ll use some of that funding to execute on that work,” she said. “Once that work is done and reserves have dwindled, we need to find other sources to keep going.”
Provincial Government Focused on Tourism Growth
In 2024, the provincial government announced its ambitious goal of growing tourism in the province to hit $25 billion annually by 2035.
The plan focuses on growing rural tourism, increasing transportation and access to areas, diversifying tourism products to be year-round, helping with labor shortages and increasing funding for Indigenous tourism operators.
If the provincial government’s lofty goals are achieved, it would add to the annual tourism levy it collects each year from hotels and lodgings. Alberta’s 2025 budget forecasts $122 million being collected from the levy in 2025-26. It collected $116 million in 2023-24 and forecasts $126 million in 2026-27 and $129 million in 2027-28.
The provincial government also passed its All-Season Resorts Act as part of its strategy to grow tourism. The plan will allow privately-owned resorts through long-term leases on Crown land and it streamlines existing approvals and processes such as the Public Lands Act, the Water Act, the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act and associated regulations.
The province has stated existing environmental standards and engagement requirements will continue.
While the provincial government has focused on growing tourism throughout Alberta, the Canadian Rocky Mountains will continue to be its moneymaker.
In 2019, 47 per cent of international visitor revenue was generated in the Rockies, according to Travel Alberta.
A 2022 Verum Consulting report for Banff, Canmore and Jasper found $2.3 billion in visitor expenditures were generated by the three mountain communities in 2019. It contributed $2 billion to Alberta’s GDP, 23,600 jobs and $308 million in taxes to the economy.
According to information from Tourism Industry Association Alberta (TIAA), in 2023 international revenue from tourism was the fifth biggest export in the province and responsible for $2.6 billion. Data from TIAA showed visitor spending in Alberta in 2023 at $12.7 billion after it was $10.7 billion in 2022.
The agency’s data indicated Albertans spend $214.50 in the province, while Canadians who come here spend $789.50 and Americans $1,230.80 per visit. International, however, spend $1,349.90 per person per visit.
A key component is focusing on bringing international visitors who are likely to spend more money rather than focusing on volume of tourists. TCK has campaigns in American states such as New York, California and Texas, with direct flights into Calgary International Airport streamlining visitation from those areas.
Ludwig said the main visitor spending in the area is for visitor accommodation followed by recreation activities and food and beverage.
“Our goal is to be growing very purposefully. We want to grow with purpose and we already see with our current numbers our highest growth months since the pandemic are October and November,” she said. “We’re really working on stretching out the shoulder seasons and growing winter more. ... It’s not necessarily you need more visitors, but you need higher spend to achieve those goals.”