Jasper ready to welcome Chinese tourists

Jasper National Park is being opened up to an entirely new market after the Chinese government gave Canada Approved Destination Status (ADS) in June. 

What this means is that tour operators right here in Jasper can begin putting together tour packages for Chinese customers. 

Before Canada received the designation, Chinese people were only allowed to travel to Canada as part of a business trip or other official endeavours. Now anyone can hop on a plane from Beijing to Vancouver. In 2008, travellers to Canada from China were estimated to number about 25,000.

The first official bunch of Chinese tourists have already come and gone, and the Columbia Icefield was one of their stops. A large group arrived in Vancouver in August and split into several smaller ones. One group consisting of 10 high officials with the Chinese National Tourism Association travelled to the Columbia Icefield, and Tourism Jasper was honoured to greet them and take them on an exclusive tour of the Athabasca Glacier. 

Karen Chalmers, who is responsible for visitor experience and product development at Tourism Jasper, along with CEO of Tourism Jasper, Maggie Davidson and representatives from Jasper’s hotel, restaurant and tour industries were there to greet the group. 

“They love it,” Chalmers said, of the short Rockies tour. The tourists enjoyed the glacier. They snapped pictures pretending they were falling into crevasses and were treated to a special Chinese dinner. 

“They really do love the nature,” Chalmers said. 

The ADS designation was officially signed at the G20 Summit in Vancouver in June after being announced in 2005, spurring tourism organizations to begin creating package tours in China. 

“We were prevented from doing that before,” said Don Boynton, executive director of corporate communication for Travel Alberta.

  Boynton said Travel Alberta already has a representative in Beijing, as well as staff in Vancouver working on developing tours. 

“We have tours that we know are attractive to Chinese tourists,” he said. 

The ADS opens up world-class destinations like Jasper National Park to well over one billion people, but travel in China comes with a unique set of challenges that Tourism Jasper is more than happy to tackle. 

“We’re delighted to do this,” Chalmers said. 

One of those difficulties is the fact that Chinese people are incredibly hard working, and the country celebrates very few holidays in a year, she said. 

“The challenge is, as this market opens up, they’re looking for quick holidays,” Chalmers said. “They work a lot.” 

With few direct air links to Alberta, Chinese tourists must travel to Vancouver first, then continue on to Calgary or Edmonton, and travel to Jasper from there. 

Another challenge is the language barrier, but Chalmers said they aren’t too worried about it. 

“There’s a very small, itty bitty Mandarin community in Jasper,” Chalmers said. She hopes that that group of people will step up to help welcome the Chinese tourists. 

Chalmers said it is also up to Jasperites to learn about the new demographic that will be coming to town in the near future. She recommends learning to say key phrases such as hello (ni hao, pronounced ‘nee how’) and thank you (xie xie, pronounced ‘sheh sheh’).

Boynton said Travel Alberta is learning more about Chinese standards to further expand their programming. They want to understand traditional customs and what Chinese tourists expect from a tour. The recent trip was apparently well received. 

“They were impressed with what they were seeing and experiencing here,” Boynton said. 

Chalmers said she and others at Tourism Jasper are seeing a unique opportunity to inform Chinese customers of Jasper. Many international tourists think of Banff as the Canadian Rockies. Now Tourism Jasper can start fresh with a new country and show them what Jasper has to offer. 

“They already have their minds made up as to the icons of Canada, and we often fall behind to Banff,” Chalmers said of international tourists. 

Boynton said it isn’t difficult to market the Alberta Rockies. 

“This is one of the most beautiful places in the world,” Boynton said. “We’re hoping we’ll spread quickly in China.”

Jasper will be marketed to three cities in China: Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou on the eastern seaboard – that’s 20 million new customers per city. The three cities’ economies are heavily reliant on the manufacturing industry. 

People living there are used to taking hours to get across town, air pollution and the dense population. Jasper is basically the exact opposite, with mountains, fresh air and tons of greenspace. 

“You’re comparing the most densely populated places in the world with one of the most open and pristine,” Chalmers said. “The air we were experiencing with the forest fires, that’s what they live with daily.”

Chinese people are extremely family-oriented, Chalmers said. One official who toured the Icefield told them he wished he could have been there with his family, a compliment that is seen as a high honour in Chinese culture. 

Jasper’s tourist season is winding down for the fall. Boynton said Travel Alberta is looking forward and developing new packages to welcome Chinese people in the new year. 

Another upside on the already long list is that interest in tourism to China could increase as well. Despite the impression that Chinese cities experience pollution and over-crowding, China has a rich history with incredible attractions such as the 8,851-kilometre Great Wall of China, the Terracotta Army in Xian and the Jiuzhaigou Valley in Sichuan province.