COMPLETED | In partnership with McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd., Legacy Tourism Group was contracted by the Alberta Government to provide a review of the current state of comfort camping opportunities within the Alberta Parks system. This work also determined where there are opportunities to add comfort camping facilities to additional parks in order to increase the overall visitation to these world-class park locations.
This project was complex and demanded expertise in a diversity of disciplines. As no single firm is equipped with the full range of skills and hands-on comfort camping planning, design, construction, and operations experience necessary to deliver this project, McElhanney Consulting Services and Legacy Tourism Group partnered to provide the right mix of expertise. Members of our team know each other well and have worked successfully together on a range of projects for Alberta Parks (Writing-on-Stone Ecotourism Assessment) and Alberta Tourism (Central Alberta Destination Management Plan, Live the Athabasca, Lethbridge Destination Management Plan).
In partnership with McElhanney, this project won a 2019 Society of Outdoor Recreation Planners award.
With evolving recreation and tourism activities and interest in overnight opportunities that have the conveniences of home and the potential of romance, the appeal of interconnected systems of strategically located and purposefully designed comfort camping opportunities has been growing and is likely to continue to grow into the future.
However, from our first hand experience, we know that it is critical that any “comfort camping” must exceed the expectations of your clients.
Recognizing the benefits and the ability for comfort camping to contribute to commitments made in the Plan for Parks and Alberta Tourism Strategy, Alberta Tourism wished to identify specific land-based comfort camping development opportunities that further Alberta Parks’ position as a significant tourism driver. The focus was for both on opportunities that can be pursued by government exclusively and by private sector developers in the short term. For those opportunities that are short-term in nature, business cases were prepared while those opportunities that are longer-term in nature were identified in more general terms. An action-oriented investment attraction strategy was also needed to enable Alberta Tourism and Alberta Parks to position the opportunities with potential investors.
