Tourism forms part of the economic backbone of Drumheller. Tourists pour money into the Valley whether it be in a short day trip of an Albertan family or a longer stay.
More tourists appear to have come to the Valley this summer.
Compared to last year, attractions around Drumheller are reporting a surge in visitors, a boon to a community that relies so much on a steady stream of tourists.
The Royal Tyrrell Museum saw an increase in attendance of five per cent over last year at this time. Last summer, the Tyrrell saw a six per cent drop over 2010.
“Tourism is up all over the province. The 100 year anniversary of the Calgary Stampede definitely brought more people into the province,” said Leanna Mohan, marketing and communications coordinator with the Tyrrell Museum.
The Tyrrell also noted a 5.5 per cent increase in Canadian visitors, a 5.8 per cent decrease from the United States. The number of visitors from the United Kingdom dropped 16 per cent over last year.
“The UK is normally our number one overseas. They’re still number one, but down 16 per cent. When I was at a tour operator conference, they were predicting that. For Europe, their economies aren’t doing well, so they aren’t travelling as much,” said Mohan.
A region that is surging in visitation is east Asia. Japan, recovering from the tsunami, is up 22 percent and China was up 12 per cent.
Other operators in the Valley saw increases in their visitation numbers.
Since beginning of the year, the World’s Largest Dinosaur has seen an eight per cent increase over last year in visitation numbers.
“It’s a positive thing for us, anytime we have an increase over the previous year is good news. We always want to boost the numbers over the previous year,” said Heather Bitz, general manager of the Drumheller and District Chamber of Commerce, who manages the World’s Largest Dinosaur.
The Homestead Museum saw similar numbers to last year during the months of July and August.
“We did pretty much on par with last year, so it’s been a pretty good summer,” said Gilles Danis, manager of the Homestead Museum.
The Atlas Coal Mine saw a swell in their long weekend tour participation numbers this summer. However, there was an overall 10 per cent drop for the summer.
“The good news is all of the long weekends were record breakers for us. We even had our record participation day, where we had 594 people in one day,” said Linda Digby, executive director of the Atlas Coal Mine.
“Generally our tour participation rate is what we tally. Our participation rate was down 10 per cent overall, but it was planned, because we had done some price adjustments on people who chose to take more than one tour. The incremental extra charge we add to people taking extra tours was too low last year,.
“So we’re having fewer people choose to take more than one tour. Whether we have the same number of actual people is hard to measure.”
Digby also noted revenue for the Atlas was up compared to 2011.
Drumheller attractions have cause to celebrate after what seems to be an increase in tourism numbers in Drumheller. Operators are reporting increases in attendance over last year.
One hypothesis for the increase in tourism numbers is the centennial Calgary Stampede, which brought many travellers to Calgary, some of whom made the trek out to Drumheller.
Another factor may be the first Drumheller DinoFest. Organizers had targeted Edmonton in their marketing efforts and many visitors took the opportunity to come down and check out DinoFest and what Drumheller has to offer.
There is also the Drumheller Consortia, a joint marketing initiative.
“The Drumheller Consortia group had a great campaign this year with online, TV, and radio. I feel it worked really well to bring people out from Calgary and Edmonton,” said Mohan.
“We continue with our marketing efforts. We always try different ways to reach out to people,” said Bitz.
“The World’s Largest Dinosaur has been really good for us, they recommended us to just about everyone they saw,” said Danis. “That’s the thing to do, keep the tourists shuffling around and seeing different things and it’ll be good for the whole.”
However, there may have been a buzzing, black cloud keeping some tourists away.
“The biggest challenge for us this summer in terms of visitation was that bad bug season. People would arrive, start slapping, and wouldn’t stay long, and I don’t blame them,” said Digby. “We have anecdotal evidence that word was getting out in Western Canada that this was a bad year to come to Drumheller, because of the bugs.”
As the shoulder season sets in, operators are looking forward to next summer and expanding marketing efforts to build upon the momentum generated this year.
