Successful Stampede sign of things to come in Calgary: tourism officials

There are smiles across the board between Tourism Calgary and the Calgary Hotel Association after near-record attendance numbers at this year’s Calgary Stampede.

“The economy is picking up,” Calgary Hotel Association executive director Peggy Athans explained. “We saw it also with the Global Petroleum Show this year doing very well. It is an indication that the economy is strengthening overall.”

Although the association does not get official hotel numbers from the 10 days of Stampede until the end of July, Athans said feedback from hotels is positive, along with 13 straight months of growth in hotel bookings.

“I’m confident we are going to be up in rooms sold,” Athans added. “We are seeing things turn around, and we rolled up our sleeves. We have been doing a lot of hard work.”

And that comes from a joint effort on a number of projects with Tourism Calgary when it comes to hotel packages with passes to see the pandas at the Calgary Zoo or even special rates to get people out to the mountain parks.

“All the indicators beyond Stampede right now are showing us that we are going to have a very good summer and hotel bookings are up,” Tourism Calgary CEO Cindy Ady said. “I encourage people to go to VisitCalgary.com to see what is on. We have a bunch of festivals and outdoor activities that are going to go throughout the summer.”

Between July 6-15, 1,271,241 people went through the gates at Stampede Park. That is just shy of the record of more than 1.4 million set in 2012.

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