By Sheldon Spackman

Central Alberta Tourism Alliance launching new website

Feb 23, 2018 | 4:32 PM

Growing tourism throughout the region is the goal behind the Central Alberta Tourism Alliance’s launch of a new website in 2018.

Jerry Pratt, Economic Development Officer with Clearwater County, says the Alliance is an informal partnership between 11 municipalities, with VisitCentralAlberta.com to be a sort of one-stop shop for all of your tourism information needs.

Pratt says the Alliance formed three and a half to four years ago and since then has been working on projects of mutual interest among partner municipalities.

“We came out with a Destination Marketing Plan two years ago in early 2016 that really highlighted a lot of things that all the areas as a group or individually can be working on,” explains Pratt. “2017 was really carrying out those activities.”

According to Pratt, plans for 2018 include the release of an accommodation study and continued website development and promotion.

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Although VisitCentralAlberta.com is up and running, Pratt says they haven’t done a lot of promotion of the new site just yet, as they’re still populating it with content.

“We regularly work with Travel Alberta, they actually attend our meetings on a regular basis,” says Pratt. “We also regularly work with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.”

Pratt points out that tourism helped out the region’s economy a lot over the past few years while the oil and gas industry struggled.

“In that time while oil and gas was not growing, tourism actually was stepping up and it was growing for us,” admitted Pratt. “We have the beauty of all of Alberta, we have prairies on the eastern side, ranging to the foothills and mountains on the western side. Really, if somebody wants to see everything they want to in Alberta, they can see it in central Alberta.”

Pratt says VisitCentralAlberta.com outlines different places to go, things to do, places to stay and where to eat.

“There’s people that come here for adventure, there’s people that come here for history,“ explains Pratt. “We actually have quite a culinary or food and beverage tourism that’s been growing, ranging from micro-brewers to specialty restaurants.”

Partnering municipalities in the Central Alberta Tourism Alliance include Red Deer, Red Deer County, Blackfalds, Lacombe, Lacombe County, Sylvan Lake, Rocky Mountain House, Clearwater County, Innisfail, Olds and Mountain View County.