Alberta Tourism Hits $15 Billion as Visitor Economy Grows

CALGARY, Alberta. Alberta tourism generated approximately C$15 billion in visitor expenditures in 2025, up 6% year over year, according to Travel Alberta’s 2025–26 Annual Report, as the Canadian province advances toward its goal of a C$25-billion visitor economy by 2035.

Travel Alberta’s newly released 2025–26 Annual Report describes tourism as Alberta’s number-one service export, supporting more than 260,000 jobs. The provincial destination management organization says international visitors alone accounted for approximately C$4 billion in spending.

The figures put Alberta substantially further along the road toward the provincial government’s ambitious objective of reaching C$25 billion in annual visitor expenditures by 2035.

Alberta’s government now reports a slightly more precise final figure of C$15.2 billion in visitor spending in 2025, saying growth was almost twice the Canadian national average.

One of the more interesting findings in Travel Alberta’s report is the disconnect between airline capacity and actual visitor growth.

Direct seat capacity from three of Alberta’s largest international markets declined in 2025: the United States by 1%, the United Kingdom by 3% and Germany by 14%. Yet visitor numbers from all three markets increased—2% from the United States, 1% from the UK and a remarkable 19% from Germany.

Markets where air capacity expanded recorded even stronger results. Travelers from France increased 11%, Mexico 38%, Japan 26% and South Korea 44%. Direct capacity from South Korea jumped 124%.

Travel Alberta said it was one of the only Canadian provinces to record an increase in U.S. travelers during 2025.

For a destination that depends heavily on aviation, the agency has made air access one of three strategic pillars, alongside marketing and destination development. Travel Alberta says its air-route investments produced a 7.6-to-1 return, exceeding its 6.5-to-1 target.

The provincial government says Travel Alberta’s air-access investment program has now generated more than 1.2 million incremental seats into Calgary and Edmonton from U.S. and overseas markets.

Perhaps the bigger story behind the numbers is where Alberta wants future tourism growth to occur.

Banff, Jasper and the Canadian Rockies remain internationally recognizable tourism icons, but Travel Alberta’s strategy is increasingly focused on dispersing visitors into rural communities, emerging destinations and Indigenous tourism businesses.

During 2025–26, more than C$19 million was invested across more than 55 communities, with more than 75% directed toward rural tourism and more than 10% toward Indigenous tourism.

Another C$4 million in tourism product development investment unlocked C$44 million in private capital and generated C$37 million in economic impact, according to the agency.

That private-investment leverage significantly exceeded Travel Alberta’s own target. Its scorecard called for four dollars of private investment for every dollar contributed by Travel Alberta. The actual ratio was C$10.80 for every dollar invested.

This approach mirrors the provincial government’s broader Higher Ground tourism strategy, which identifies investment, workforce development, expanded access and Indigenous tourism as central components of the effort to reach C$25 billion in visitor expenditures by 2035.

Travel Alberta says it invested C$2 million in Indigenous Tourism Alberta during the fiscal year to strengthen leadership and capacity.

The annual report also highlights individual Indigenous tourism projects rather than treating Indigenous tourism purely as a marketing category.

One is Minookimi Shores, an Indigenous art, wellness and ancestral-skills retreat being developed in central Alberta by Autumn Whiteway, also known as Night Singing Woman and Circling Eagle Woman. Travel Alberta investment helped fund infrastructure required to move the business toward land-based operations.

Elsewhere, Indian Relay Racing at the Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede recorded a 51% increase in attendance in 2025, according to the report. Travel Alberta presents the event as an example of tourism investment simultaneously supporting visitation, Indigenous culture and community development.

At the government level, Alberta says it has committed C$6 million over three years to Indigenous Tourism Alberta and expanded access to financing for Indigenous tourism developments through the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation.

Alberta is also experimenting with a tourism-marketing strategy increasingly familiar to destinations from Thailand to South Korea: turning film and television audiences into visitors.

The Korean Netflix drama “Can This Love Be Translated?” featured Alberta locations including Calgary, the Badlands, Canmore, Kananaskis and Banff.

Travel Alberta says the Alberta-filmed series attracted more than 20 million views during its first month, reaching number one in 15 countries and the top 10 in 60.

The tourism organization built a dedicated filming-locations itinerary designed to capture searches generated by the program. Sessions from South Korea on Travel Alberta’s website subsequently increased 115.7% year over year.

The timing was particularly significant because the campaign coincided with the resumption of direct Seoul-Calgary air service.

It is an example of destination marketing moving considerably beyond traditional advertising: entertainment creates awareness, aviation provides accessibility, and searchable itineraries attempt to convert that attention into actual bookings.

Travel Alberta’s report contains another signal of where destination marketing may be heading.

The organization says it is adapting tourism content so it can be “accurately interpreted, surfaced, and cited” by large language models as travelers increasingly use AI systems during trip planning.

Internally, Travel Alberta also says it has expanded AI-enabled workflows for content development and data-informed decision-making, while establishing guidelines covering transparency, human accountability, privacy, security and potential bias.

Ironically, one of its successful advertising concepts played directly with consumer suspicion of AI-generated imagery.

The “Alberta Imagery,” or “AI,” campaign promoted spectacular Alberta landscapes while emphasizing that the pictures were 100% real.

The annual report also reveals how much Travel Alberta’s mandate now overlaps with conventional economic-development agencies.

Its Investor Concierge program worked with Scandinave Group and Edmonton Global on a proposed Scandinave Spa Edmonton development.

Travel Alberta says the project is projected to produce C$121 million in economic impact over its first decade, along with 330 temporary jobs and 52 permanent full-time positions.

Other investments are much smaller but illustrate the same strategy.

At Expanse Cottages near Nordegg, Travel Alberta funding helped an operator expand sufficiently to turn two part-time positions into full-time jobs while increasing revenue by more than C$155,000.

Granary Road south of Calgary, meanwhile, is being expanded from a seasonal attraction toward a year-round agricultural tourism experience. Travel Alberta says the attraction welcomes more than 200,000 visitors annually.

The provincial government is reinforcing that direction through its all-season resort strategy, which is designed to attract private capital into accommodation, recreation and tourism amenities capable of operating throughout the year.

Behind the tourism growth is a significant public investment.

Travel Alberta reported C$76.1 million in revenue and C$76.1 million in expenses for the year ended March 31, 2026, resulting in an operating deficit of C$32,000.

The Government of Alberta provided C$74.9 million in grant revenue.

Destination promotion accounted for C$34.4 million in spending, while destination and commercial development accounted for C$31.5 million. Corporate services cost C$7.4 million, while approximately C$2.7 million went toward tourism research, data analytics, stakeholder engagement, strategy and corporate communications.

The Auditor General of Alberta issued an unmodified opinion, saying the financial statements fairly presented Travel Alberta’s financial position and operating results in accordance with Canadian public-sector accounting standards.

Reaching C$15.2 billion puts Alberta well past the starting point of its current tourism strategy, but reaching C$25 billion by 2035 still requires roughly another C$10 billion in annual visitor expenditure.

Reporting originally appeared via eTurboNews. Read the full source for additional context.