Travel Alberta doesn't want to be just a marketing shop. As CEO David Goldstein puts it, you can't “market your way out of all of your problems.”
So, the destination marketing organization for the Canadian province took its cue from peers like New Zealand and Ireland, wading into development itself rather than stopping at promotion. The bet has paid out in hard numbers.
“Over the last four years, we've invested $100 million in product development, which has triggered over ($250 million) worth of private sector development in the province,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein and Jon Mamela, senior vice president and chief commercial officer at Travel Alberta, made that pitch to investors, developers and owner/operators during the “Where to Grow Next” roundtable at the NYU International Hospitality Investment Forum in New York earlier this month.
What Travel Alberta offers, Goldstein said, is hand-holding through the parts of a deal that trip up outsiders. Pointing to a prominent Canadian investor opening a yet-to-be-announced boutique hotel in Alberta, he said Mamela's team had supplied feasibility studies, economic and demand analyses, and guidance on municipal zoning and red tape — and can connect investors with management groups or brand companies to assemble a deal.
“There are often investors that come into this space who may be very accomplished entrepreneurs in other areas, but not particularly hotels,” Goldstein said. “Our team's ability is to play that concierge service and fill in the holes… We can do that no matter what your level of expertise.”
Where to grow next
Goldstein spotlighted three all-season resort development opportunities in Alberta the Fortress Ski Area in Kananaskis Village, the Nakiska ski resort in Kananaskis, and the Castle Mountain Resort in southern Alberta. He noted there will also be other developments opening up for investment in the future.
“If those who are looking for opportunities in either the big markets like Calgary or Edmonton or smaller boutique opportunities in the rest of the province… we are fully equipped to help you with that,” Goldstein said. “We have opened up other areas of the province… that will create a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
The province has made itself an easier sell. He noted that Alberta has become a more investor-friendly destination, with record tourism growth in the province outpacing national demand by as much as triple and was the first to return to pre-COVID levels, helped by iconic destinations well connected to airports and a low business-tax environment.
The trajectory is steep. Alberta's tourism is projected to hit $25 billion in revenue by 2035, up from $10 billion before COVID and $15.1 billion last year. Much of that lift has come from a booming winter: Goldstein noted a record-breaking first quarter in 2025, largely on U.S. visits.
But the growth he's chasing lies outside the ski season, and that condition is now baked into how Alberta licenses resorts.
“[Having an] all-season resort has to be one part of the licensing criteria. There has to be all-season activity [because] these are just not ski hills,” he said. “There has to be a summer product. There has to be a shoulder season product. We've been very emphatic on that, because otherwise the ski business is a standalone business.”
One developer is testing that thesis in reverse. In Nakiska, Goldstein said, the team is building out summer activity first.
“They actually want to start working on some of that summer activity before the major [development] goes forward, which was not what we envisioned originally, but it's been pretty innovative,” he said. “What they want to be able to do is demonstrate that they can stimulate the idea of year-round demand before asking folks to come in and invest in the property.”
One-stop regulation
To clear the path, Alberta announced All-Season Resort legislation that consolidates the jurisdiction of two or three provincial departments and six pieces of legislation under a single regulator.
“There are two paths forward. One is to partner with existing all-season resort areas, and so we have again the three designated areas are in the process of filing out their corporate and leasing structure,” he said. “But then there will also be opportunities to explore other areas with unprovincial crown land across the province.”
The push has political muscle behind it. Tourism, Goldstein said, is a priority for a provincial government looking to diversify.
“They're very aggressive on this,” he said. “The province sees tourism as one of the more important areas to diversify in the economy, which is largely an oil and gas economy.”
Opportunity isn't confined to the resorts. Goldstein flagged boutique hotel prospects across the province—including some ranches changing hands.
“We're in a unique situation where there are a few of the traditional ranchers that are in a generational change right now and are looking to sell,” he said.
A broken model
For Goldstein, all of this is a deliberate break from how destination marketing organizations usually operate — a model he considers fundamentally broken.
“The model, where, especially in urban centers, you collect a destination marketing fee, it gets filtered through either a hotel association to a DMO and it creates business… it can be fairly myopic,” he said. “They're spending most of that money on citywide (events) and citywide sporting events, which are very good at filling hotel rooms, but it's like giving a chocolate bar to a diabetic.”
That short-term focus crowds out the long-term work of partnering with investors—which is where Goldstein wants Travel Alberta to live.
“What we have created is a symbiotic relationship because I want to help you get up and running,” he said. “I want to be able to showcase your product. I want to put the prettiest dresses in the window and actually support that through our various marketing channels. It's one of the things that's broken in the system and something that we're really trying to fix.”