It looks like, despite some hardship, the tourism in Drumheller surged ahead in late July and August. Several tourist destinations are reporting healthy increases in the late summer over the numbers seen last year. Some even broke records.
A consistent report is a dip in tourism following the flooding at the end of June, but numbers recovering by mid July.
People from all over the world flocked to Drumheller this summer. Local tourist attractions reported several record-breaking long weekends throughout the summer and numbers continued to surge in August and September.
“May and June were slow. I think this year, we suffered from the flooding. People who were flooded weren’t travelling,” said Giles Danis of the Homestead Museum.
In August, numbers began to swell, even breaking records.
“We had an amazing summer. We really felt we had a solid margin over last year, with the exception of a couple weeks after the flood. Even with that we had an incredible year,” said Linda Digby, Executive Director of the Atlas Coal Mine.
“The Saturday of the August long weekend was our best day ever, at least 12 per cent over our previous best day. We were having parking lot issues like we’ve never had before. We had to create overflow parking. We’re putting more energy into parking management than we have before. That’s a good problem.”
At the Tyrrell, August numbers leaped 12 per cent, 11,516 people, over last year, for a total of 107,041 attendees. The long weekends also broke records. September also started strong with over 2,000 visitors each day to the Tyrrell Museum.
“Our two long weekends broke records as well. We hit max capacity on a couple of them,” said Leanna Mohan, head of marketing and public relations at the Tyrrell Museum.
There were a number of factors contributing to the late summer boost in visitors.
“In August, we had an even bigger spike. Is it the Amazing Race factor, people starting to travel more after the flood, or the marketing we’ve been doing as a community? It’s hard to sort out,” said Digby.
A similar situation occurred at the Royal Tyrrell Museum.
“The weather, the Amazing Race, Marilyn Dennis, and all the media coverage helped. Our numbers were down in July, so maybe some people who were planning on coming in July decided to come in August instead,” said Mohan.
However, word of mouth still seems to play a large role in bringing people to the Valley.
“Most told us they came because someone told us to come here or had been here before and decided to come back,” said Digby.
Also helping some smaller destinations is cooperation.
“After Labour Day, the Tyrrell closes on Mondays for maintenance, so the people at the World’s Largest Dinosaur have been telling people to come here. We’ve been seeing more people,” said Danis.
It is hoped these numbers aren’t just an isolated occurrence. Travel Drumheller, the town’s new destination marketing organization, is working to keep the shoulder seasons strong.
“What is interesting is the shoulder season has also been busier than it ever has been. We just started a fall campaign targeted at the Edmonton area, called ‘Hey weekend, Drumheller is calling.’ The object is get people down from Edmonton, stay overnight, and visit more attractions,” said Chris Curtis, executive director of Travel Drumheller. “We went and marketed the BCF for conferences. There was a lot of interest from Calgary to use the meeting spaces down here for their retreats and corporate meetings. We’ll be working on this winter.”