An extra 103 visitors per day, or just over 37,000 year, is the target Jasper National Park (JNP) is aiming for as part of its draft Park Management Plan for 2010/11. After that, the aim is to increase park attendance by two per cent per year until 2012/13.

The target is an indicator of success under the key strategy “Welcome to Mountains of Opportunity” which states: “Connecting Canadians to inspiring and authentic park experience is integral to successful delivery of Parks Canada’s mandate.”

According to JNP superintendent, Greg Fenton, the strategy will focus on getting visitors to Jasper in the off seasons – in the spring, fall and winter – and is more than achievable.

“The desire is not to have the 40,000 (visitors) on July 1st,” he said, “but to enhance into some of the non-peak areas.”

For Helen Kelleher-Empey, tourism development specialist with Grande Alberta Economic Region (GAER), the increase in attendance is nothing but good news for the entire region.

“I think it’s awesome that Parks is being proactive and working with all the partners with increasing visitation,” she said.

Maggie Davison, recently hired chief executive officer of the Jasper Destination Marketing Corporation (JDMC), said it was important to grow visitation in sustainable way, and to focus on the shoulder seasons.

“We don’t want to increase visitation when we’re almost at 100 per cent capacity,” she said noting it was “less of a strain on the environment” if they could entice travellers to come at other times of the year.

Kelleher-Empey echoed the importance of focusing on the shoulder seasons and said “when Jasper is full in summer you can’t put another two per cent in.”

While the plan is to bring people in the off-seasons, Fenton noted that JNP was more than able to deal with the capacity, should it all happen in the summer or the main winter season.

“We do have capacity for more people, and we want to connect them with nature and culture,” he said.

According to Shawn Cardiff, manager of integrated land use, planning and policy, JNP used to accommodate 2.5 million people in the late 80’s and early 90’s and in 2006/07 there were 2 million visitors.

“I don’t think we’ll have any difficulties accommodating them,” he said.

Despite the plan being for the next 15 years, this strategy only dictates the next three, and after that the park will reassess the target for the following years.

“We’ll be doing an annual review to see if we’re meeting or exceeding... and if not what are we doing to increase it?” Cardiff said.

Additionally, the superintendent said the decision to continue to increase park attendance will depend on where the people are going, what they are doing in the park, and whether there are impacts on environment.

While there are no set plans for how the agency or its partners will increase numbers, Fenton used the example of dog sledding as an activity that could be introduced to bring more people to JNP in the winter.

“Maybe that’s a business opportunity for someone as a service or an activity enhancement,” he suggested noting that there was no “real tangible examples” at this point.

Instead, the plan is a “signal to others” to bring ideas forward that will help the agency to meet it’s goal of almost 40,000 extra visitors in 2010/11.

As the plan breaks the park into six ‘area concepts’ Cardiff suggested that any new special events would be best placed in the three valley confluence. “[It] maybe the first choice for special events, like the wildlife festival... it is one of the best because it’s the low elevation hub, it’s also the place where we have infrastructure.”

Fenton is also focused on effectiveness, and working with partners such as the JDMC, GAER and Jasper Tourism and Commerce to develop new marketing strategies.

“It’s working with others in developing a revised tourism and marketing strategy,” said Fenton, noting that the agency would be able to draw on data these corporations collect on the characteristics of visitor.

“How can we be more effective? What do we do well?” he asked. “We’ll work with whoever we need.”

One suggestion that Kelleher-Empey made was to diversify the tourism product. “More business events, more events in general,” she said. “Jasper’s an excellent destination for conferences, for business people to come and host their business events,”

Despite being new to town, Davison said it was great Parks were ready to sit down and talk tourism.

“It’s great to know that everybody is prepared to sit down and have those open dialogues,” she said. “We’re all making a really good effort to work together so that, one we’re not duplicating efforts and two, we’re aligned in our planning.”

While neither Fenton or Cardiff could talk specifically to the type of visitors the park wanted to entice, Fenton did reinforce Parks Canada focus on the urban centres, youth and new Canadians.

“We need to be targeting them, and we’ll continue to target them... reconnecting them or connecting them,” he said adding that the Young Canadian program, run at the Palisades Environmental Stewardship Centre was a perfect example of that.

Meanwhile, Davison suggests it’s important to understand the shift in the tourism industry – specifically as people move away from the coach tours and defined itinerary travellers. According to her, the park will need to focus on the independent travellers who plan their own itineraries and use various ways to build their stays in different destinations.

“That’s a huge shift for the industry,” she said, “and we need to make sure we’re working closely with Parks on that as well.”