(Mohkinstsis/Calgary, Alberta)
August 18, 2026

Emma Hoskins, CPAWS Southern Alberta Conservation Campaign Specialist

The Alberta All-Season Resort Act (ASRA) wants to grow Alberta’s tourism industry, but for that growth to happen sustainably, location matters.  

Alberta has good reason to invest in tourism. The province’s mountains, foothills, grasslands, boreal forests, and northern landscapes draw visitors from around the world, and that tourism revenue supports communities across the province. In 2024 alone, Alberta welcomed more than 38 million visitors, making tourism the province’s fourth-largest export sector, and one that continues to grow quickly. The provincial government’s Higher Ground: A Tourism Sector Strategy aims to increase annual visitor spending from $15 billion in 2025 to $25 billion by 2035 — a 67% increase in just one decade.  

Yet these landscapes also provide habitat for wildlife, clean water, and other ecological benefits, such as flood mitigation, that extend far beyond tourism. As Alberta rapidly grows its tourism economy, we need to ensure we are not undermining the very landscapes that sustain local ecosystems and communities, and which are themselves the foundation of our tourism economy. 

Priority Growth Areas: Tourism Beyond Banff 

One of the province’s goals is to direct tourism growth beyond Alberta’s busiest destinations. Higher Ground: A Tourism Sector Strategy identifies reducing visitation pressures on heavily used mountain parks and communities, including Banff, as a priority. Travel Alberta has also identified ten Tourism Development Zones to encourage investment beyond the mature Rocky Mountain corridor of Banff, Canmore, Lake Louise, and Jasper. Five priority growth areas have been identified: the Canadian Badlands, Foothills, Northern Rockies, Southern Rockies, and David Thompson regions. 

Directing investment to these areas could help spread the economic benefits of tourism across the province, while reducing the tremendous pressure on places that are already experiencing high visitation. However, identifying where tourism growth could occur is only the first step: We need to understand whether these are landscapes that can support any proposed developments, as well as the increased visitation that would come with additional infrastructure and visitation. 

Tourism development does not happen in isolation. A new resort or attraction can bring increased traffic, demand for infrastructure and water, and additional pressure on wildlife and habitat. Those impacts also compound as multiple projects are developed within the same landscape. 

This is why tourism growth cannot effectively occur without proper land use planning. 

Why Land-Use Planning Matters for Tourism 

Alberta’s Land Use Framework and the Alberta Land Stewardship Act provide the foundation for regional planning across the province. These processes are intended to guide how different uses of Crown land are balanced and how environmental, economic, and social priorities are considered at a landscape scale. Other provincial and federal legislation provides added protections for parks, wildlife, water, species at risk, and environmental values. 

However, these policies and laws were developed to address different objectives. Alberta does not yet have a single integrated framework that connects tourism growth with broader land use planning across the province. Several regional and sub-regional plans remain incomplete or outdated, while cumulative impacts are often considered through individual project assessments rather than through landscape-scale planning. 

The All-Season Resorts Act  (ASRA) illustrates why these matter. 

The Impact of the All-Season Resorts Act 

Introduced in 2024, ASRA enables the designation of areas on Crown land for the development of All-Season Resorts (ASR). The Act is intended to facilitate tourism investment and expand year-round recreation opportunities, but it does NOT provide a framework for determining where this type of development is appropriate or whether a landscape can support it.  

ASRA does not determine how much development a landscape can accommodate, how an ASR should fit alongside other land uses, or whether a particular area is the right place for significant new tourism development. Those questions require broader land use planning, including consideration of cumulative effects, wildlife connectivity, infrastructure, water, recreation, and community needs. 

The current All-Season Resort Area designations at Nakiska and Fortress Mountain demonstrate why a more coordinated, landscape-level approach to tourism development is needed. Neither are located within one of Travel Alberta’s identified Tourism Development Zones, raising questions about how individual resort development decisions align with the province’s broader strategy for directing tourism growth. What’s more, these two locations are also only 13 km apart, further highlighting the need to assess development at the landscape level, rather than on a project-by-project basis. 

Location, Location, Location 

Tourism can create important economic opportunities, particularly when investment is directed toward communities and landscapes that can accommodate it. But if Alberta wants tourism growth to reduce pressure on its busiest destinations, rather than simply shift or increase those pressures, we need to plan for growth at the landscape scale, province-wide, before approving one-off developments. 

Doing so requires: Ensuring tourism strategies are aligned with land use plans, strengthening cumulative effects planning, and considering ecological and community capacity before individual projects are approved. 

Alberta can grow its tourism economy while protecting the landscapes that make it possible. But getting tourism growth right starts with making sure it happens in the right places.