According to Parks Canada, local restaurants and hotels, the recent long weekend was just as busy as last year’s, indicating that the stagnation of the global recession in recent years may still be skulking around. Overall, and despite some bright spots, it appears that Jasper has still yet to bounce back to the highs seen before 2007. 

Kevin Henderson, the assistant general manager for Mountain Park Lodges, which owns five hotels and lodges in the Jasper area, said this long weekend was basically the same as last year’s. Overall, MPL’s accommodations were sold out for Saturday and Sunday, but on the Friday night, they were operating at 65 per cent.

He said these numbers were lower than longer term trends and that over the past several years, business has been tougher than usual for hotel operators in town.

“It’s related to the recession, no doubt,” said Henderson. “International visitors are definitely down and we are seeing more people from inside Alberta and Canada... It’s just harder for people around the world now to travel.”

Following similar trends over the last year, he also said many of the visitors now also appear to be taking greater strides to make their dollars stretch further. While MPL has maintained consistent prices at the front desk, tourists have become more savvy at finding deals online and through organizations like the Alberta Motorist Association.

“People are shopping around a lot more and looking for different options,” said Henderson about the hunt to add value to a dollar.

Parks Canada appears to be following along in a similar vein as MPL.

Overall, the number of reservations at the Parks Canada campgrounds around Jasper were up slightly in 2010 over 2009 by 2.5 per cent (2757 reservations this year versus 2707 reservations last year). The numbers are still down significantly from 2008, where there were 3559 reservations.

“2008 was an outstanding May [long weekend] in terms of weather,” stated Jasper National Park spokesperson Thea Mitchell in an email.

Restaurants around town also reported that the long weekend was just business as usual in these tougher economic times.

“We were maybe not as busy as we could have been,” said Jason Meister, a cook at Andy’s Bistro in Jasper. He said the long weekend was no different for the restaurant than last years. Out of the 15 years that he has worked in Jasper, he said this year’s weekend was a quiet one.

“It was off and on, you know,” said Helen Balomenos, owner of Something Else restaurant who said that this year was no different than the last. “We have a really great staff, so we get by.” 

Not all businesses appear to have suffered the repeating pinch, however.

Stephanie Sophocleous, General Manager at Tekarra Lodge in Jasper said the lodge had one of its best Victoria Day long weekends in five years. While Friday night left some empty rooms at the hotel, Saturday, they were completely booked, a five year first.

“We did have a lot of last-minute bookings,” she said, but otherwise, she was at a loss to explain why the weekend went so well.

Alfred Kong, who owns the Smitty’s Restaurant in town, said overall, his business had a pretty good weekend.

“Times are a little tougher these days, so people tend to congregate in places where they know they can find cheap food,” he said.

In recent weeks, a new marketing campaign, titled My Jasper, was launched by Tourism Jasper to bring more tourist dollars into the area. The group has placed ads in newspapers such as the Edmonton Journal and is launching a social-media focused website that will offer up stories from real people who have visited Jasper.

“[The newspaper ads] may have caught some people, but once you get the snow and lousy weather, it’s very hard to get people to come,” said Maggie Davison, CEO of Tourism Jasper. She said that it was likely too early to tell if the new ad campaign was at all effective.

She said that the efforts to rebrand Jasper would target the shoulder seasons, as Jasper already operates at capacity over the summer months. 

Tourism Jasper is still putting together the pieces of the new My Jasper campaign. The website that offers up authentic stories from Jasper visitors is not complete and more ads and stories are forthcoming. Davison also said the recent meetings with international operators (the people who sell tourism packages and hand out brochures about Jasper in foreign markets) won’t reap benefits until 2011.