2020 look back: How COVID-19 changed tourism in Alberta

CALGARY – The pandemic took a huge toll on the Alberta tourism industry in 2020.

Locals flocked to the mountain parks as COVID-19 restrictions brought international travel to a standstill.

More and more Albertans spent weekends escaping to campgrounds.

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But with fewer international travellers coming into town, it also meant a lean summer for hotels, especially in the tourist hot spot of Banff.

Angela Anderson with Banff Lake Louise tourism says there were a lot of empty rooms.

“If you walk into a hotel, it’s going to feel different right now,” said Anderson.

“Almost everywhere they’re very much limiting people allowed in common spaces just to allow for social distancing. They’ve increased their cleaning practices,” she said.

Some hotels even started doing temperature checks at the door and gave out masks to guests who did not have one.

Anderson says hotels in the area are doing okay, all things considered, but they saw about half as many guests as normal.

WATCH: Campers occupy crown land indefinitely, leaves limited space for others

“Obviously, [that’s] not anywhere near what we have had, but they were better than we did expect.”

Anderson says people this year have been booking last minute, jumping on deals or taking a spu- of-the-moment trip into the mountains.

The Town of Banff also shut off part of its main street to traffic over the summer, to allow more room for pedestrians to social distance.

Anderson says one of the bigger challenges they faced this year is appealing to local tourism.

Usually, Banff and Lake Louise focus on attracting international visitors but in 2020 there was a shift in priorities. But attracting people who already know what Banff has to offer and have spent many-a-weekend there is no easy task.

Anderson says there are things in Banff that you can do if you’re not into skiing and there are lots of wintertime and Christmas-themed activities for people looking for a little escape, including an interactive “lighting experience”.

From an influx of campers to a busy start to ski season

The beginning of the ski season saw some hills nearly overrun with skiers and snowboarders.

Sunshine Village had to do some crowd control in November, even considering closing its parking lot because it was getting uncomfortably crowded.

MORE: Skiers nearly turned away from mountain trails as resorts adapt to COVID-19 rules

“On Saturday (Nov. 21) we did have big lines—line ups that were bigger than what we wanted to see, even though the numbers were considerably lower than what they would typically be in an average year,” said Kendra Scurfield with the resort in an interview the following Monday.

“We want to make sure we’re maintaining social distancing in all of our lineups, our lifts, and, of course, our facilities.”

Sunshine has had to hire more staff to do extra cleaning and enforce social distancing.

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“We’ve definitely learned that managing the resort in COVID times does take more resources than we initially accounted for,” said Scurfield.

“So, we are still hiring for positions and we’ve added new positions just to be able to make sure that we can really accommodate guests and sanitize everything.”

Unfortunately, as we entered fall and winter, the COVID-19 case count in Banff climbed rapidly and the town had to bring in even more restrictions.

-with files from CityNews and the Canadian Press