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With its stunning national parks and can\u2019t-miss events like the Calgary Stampede, Alberta has long been a tourism hot spot. <\/p>\n
But higher taxes on visitors, along with uncertainty around a potential vote on separation, might have a chilling effect on the province\u2019s tourism industry, according to a new report. <\/p>\n
The Tourism Industry Association of Albertan warns the fees could amount to annual losses of $164 million in visitor spending.<\/p>\n
On April 1, the province upped the tourism levy<\/a> from four to six per cent, increasing the fee for anyone booking hotels in the province.\u00a0Next year, a new rental car tax<\/a> will kick in, charging customers six per cent of the base cost of the vehicle.<\/p>\n Darren Reader, the association’s CEO, says the fees could dispel some from visiting \u2014 including homegrown tourists.<\/p>\n He says Albertans count for three quarters of tourism spending in the province.<\/p>\n \u201cAlbertans that have a whole number of maybe summer experiences that they like to engage in are going to start to try to rationalize those costs [and] say maybe we won\u2019t go as long, or maybe we won\u2019t go as far,\u201d Reeder said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Alberta Hotel and Lodging Association says the levy increase risks visitor spending at a time when cost of living is front of mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAccommodation is the foundation of the visitor economy, and increasing these costs weakens our competitiveness as a destination,\u201d Tracy Douglas, CEO of the association said in a statement.<\/p>\n Separation unknowns\u00a0<\/p>\n The report also suggests concerns around a referendum on separation has businesses within the industry reconsidering spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n More than 40 per cent of tourism businesses surveyed said they have already postponed, scaled back or redirected investments, like adding new experiences or expanding their locations.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cInvestors typically wait until they can take risk out of the environment before moving to the next stage,\u201d Reeder said. <\/p>\n It could amount to an estimated $271 million dollars in capital investments stalled, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n And because every dollar of tourism investment translates nearly four-fold in visitor spending, Reeders says that loss could end up costing the industry $1 billion in tourism dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n Minister defends fee increase\u00a0<\/p>\n Tourism is a major driver of the province\u2019s economy. Travel Alberta estimated $15.2 billion in visitor spending last year, making tourism the province’s fourth-largest driver of international trade.\u00a0<\/p>\n Reeder worries any hit to the industry could compromise the provincial goal<\/a> of $25 billion in annual visitor spending by 2035.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tourism Minister Andrew Boitchenko says the province is still on track to hit that target. And he says Alberta continues to outperform the national average when it comes to tourism growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Speaking at the legislature Thursday, he defended the increased fees.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEvery dollar that we are collecting from levies, it goes back to general revenue to support Alberta and Albertan families,\u201d said Boitchenko.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to make sure that tourists to our province pay their fair share of fees, taxes, when they come to our province, because they\u2019re all using our infrastructure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Boitchenko also pointed to major upcoming events that should bring a lot of tourism dollars, like this fall’s Grey Cup<\/a>, with an estimated $50 million in visitor spending, and next year\u2019s World Juniors<\/a>, projected to generate the same amount. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-628989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777171631_9_default.jpg\")
A teen hiker looks at Peyto Lake from Bow Summit in Banff National Park on the Icefields Parkway. (Ronnie Chua\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n