The travel business is gearing up for an uncertain summer season in Alberta as tourism operators await last-minute final bookings and air passenger numbers from U.S. markets remain soft.

Travellers still wary after last fall’s terrorist attacks and reduced airline seating capacity for flights servicing Calgary are factors that could affect tourism revenues this year, but travel promoters are keeping their fingers crossed that this summer will at least be on par with last.

“These folks who work in the tourism industry are always rolling the dice,” said Derek Coke-Kerr, managing director of Travel Alberta. “(This year) will be difficult to project, because nothing like this has happened before. If we meet the same numbers that we met last year, we’ll be doing pretty well.”

Coke-Kerr delivered the first annual update of Alberta’s Strategic Tourism Marketing plan since Sept. 11 to an audience of nearly 200 local travel and tourism operators last week in Calgary.

The report has revised the overall goal of the three-year plan, calling now for an increase in tourism revenue to $4.8 billion by the end of December, 2004, from $4.2 billion in 1999. Two years ago, a provincial government economic blueprint set a goal of expanding the industry to $6 billion a year by 2005.

Tourism spending in this province in 2000 and 2001 is estimated to have reached the $4.3-billion target each year.

The theme of the morning workshops included a greater emphasis on the at-home market, featuring an aggressive in-province advertising campaign. The strategy also includes leveraging opportunities from the upcoming G8 Summit in Kananaskis and Alberta’s 2005 centennial.

As for the international travel picture, “we don’t think the Asian market is going to come back as quickly as some of the other markets,” Coke-Kerr said in an interview. “We also think the German market will not come back as well as we’d like to see it.”

But many travellers are waiting for the last minute to book their trips, he added, and this year Alberta may see more “FITs” – free and independent travellers – who aren’t booked with any particular tour group.

International air traffic numbers from Alberta to the U.S. remain in a holding pattern, with numbers down about five per cent from the same period last year, said Julien De Schutter, vice-president of airport marketing for the Calgary Airport Authority.

Domestic passenger numbers are up more than six per cent in the first four months of this year compared to 2001.

Part of the decline in international numbers can be attributed to fewer non-stop flights directly from Calgary to the U.S. At this time last year, De Schutter noted, Calgary offered three non-stop flights a week to Hawaii that no longer exist, and when Calgary travellers fly to U.S. destinations via Vancouver, they’re counted as domestic flyers.

The non-profit airport authority released its 2001 annual report last week which indicates passenger and air carrier movements are recovering from the effects of Sept. 11, but year-over-year traffic is still expected to decline temporarily on an annualized basis from 2001.

In Edmonton, the Conference Board of Canada’s Canadian Tourism Research Institute predicted earlier this year the number of non-stop airline seats available to Edmonton will also be down this year with a total of 2.88 million, compared to 3.26 million seats last year and 2.94 million seats in 2000.

“The business market is doing very well, in Calgary in particular,” said De Schutter. “We anticipate the international market would continue to do well if we had the capacity to get it here.”

As for travellers coming to Calgary, “right now, the forecast for this summer, unless there are very drastic changes that take place between airlines . . . is that we’re going to be down, probably, on average, between 600 and 900 seats per day internationally,” said De Schutter.

“And that’s what’s going to cause international traffic to not be able to get here so easily. It will have to come by gateways via Toronto, or Minneapolis, Dallas, Chicago, or where U.S. carriers will do it.”

Overall, traffic year over year is only down about one and a half per cent quarter to quarter. During 2001, a total of 8.3 million passengers (about 23,000 per day) passed through Calgary International Airport, making Calgary the third-busiest airport in Canada last year.

“We’re really holding our own as an economy, as a province, and as a destination for business and for leisure travel,” De Schutter said.