With the start of the summer tourist season just a few months away, people who work in Alberta’s tourism industry are expecting another boom of visitors from both within Canada and around the world.

The soaring number of visitors has been especially noticeable in places like Banff National Park, where the town of Banff welcomed a record number of tourists — almost seven million vehicles into the town site, up four per cent from 2024.

The federal government’s decision to renew the Canada Strong pass, which provides free access to national parks and national historic sites, amongst other benefits, for a second summer is expected to again help fuel the boom in visitors.

Parks Canada said that between June 2 and Sept. 2 of last year, the period when the Canada Strong pass was available, sites administered by the agency saw an estimated 14 and a half million visitors — a jump of 13 per cent over the previous year.

It’s a stark contrast to the United States, where the Trump administration will be charging non-residents an extra $100 tourist fee to visit many of America’s national parks, which is likely to encourage even more people to look elsewhere — perhaps north of the border.

“Banff is such a beautiful place and everybody wants to come,” said Stéphane Prévost, executive chef and managing partner for Block Kitchen and Bar and Shoku Izakaya in Banff.

While Prévost told Global News that he feels privileged to live and work in Banff, and is eager to welcome visitors, he said it must be done in a sustainable way.

“I think this is a good situation for us in Canada. There are always different opinions on opening the gates and making it free for everybody to access the parks, which amplifies the inbound traffic. Of course there’s things that we need to manage carefully with that,” said Prévost.

“Over-tourism is a big topic, a big subject that can be divisive, polarizing. However I’m on the side of promoting tourism in the right way, in a sustainable way. That’s how our economy can continue to thrive and succeed for us to keep everybody employed and to be successful and to continue to deliver this great experience to the guests that visit us from all over the place, Canada and the world.”

Concern about Over-tourism is a issue the mayor of Banff says the town is working hard to address.

Corrie DiManno says the expansion of sustainable transit options, like Roam Transit, which encourages visitors to park their cars and take the bus to visit popular attractions like the Banff Gondola, has helped greatly reduce traffic congestion in town.

“We have invested millions of dollars into our transit system to try and address it,” said DiManno.  “After last summer we now know that 40 per cent of the bridge crossings over the Bow River happen on sustainable transportation. So it’s either folks on the bus, buses across our vehicle bridge, or by foot or by bike across our pedestrian bridges. So sustainable transportation is the solution here in town.

“We’ve put in a transit lane that goes to one of the top attractions in the park — the Banff gondola. We have flaggers at intersections during peak times. The town has basically pulled every lever within our control,” added DiManno.

What she claims the town needs now, to help continue to address traffic concerns, is support from the provincial and federal governments to develop better mass transit options from the city of Calgary.

The town is also exploring ways to help grow the winter demand for tourism.

“The impetus behind that is to try and smooth out our tourism so that it’s not so heavily weighted in summer and instead to have more consistent tourism throughout the year,” said DiManno.

“This helps with business certainty as well as folks knowing that they have a steady job. The peaks and valleys can be quite difficult for our residents. There already is a high cost of living here and if folks are getting their shifts cut and not able to have consistent work, then that’s going to affect their ability to pay rent, buy groceries, those sorts of daily things.”

DiManno said the town is also planning an in-depth study of the issue of over-tourism, consulting with residents and businesses about exactly what the issues are and what problems need to be solved.

“I don’t believe the request for proposals has gone out quite yet, but they are working on that,” said DiManno.

“For example, we know our road network is at capacity during peak time, but are our sidewalks? That’s a question we don’t have an answer to,” said DiManno.

“What about restaurants? What about the trails? What about our hospital and health centres? So we’re gonna have this exploratory conversation with all sectors of the community. We know it’s going to be about a year-long process. We want to make sure we’re doing this right.”

In the meantime, both residents and business owners are gearing up for what could be another record tourism season.

“In my opinion, Banff National Park is one of the most beautiful places on the planet and it’s such a gift to be able to share the town with the world and we take it very seriously that we live within a national park and we want to be stewards of this place,” DiManno added.

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