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Travel Alberta's David Goldstein

• Jeff Borman and Matt Brown

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​​Nobody knows the ebbs and flows, ins and outs, weather patterns and trail ratings of Canadian tourism like Travel Alberta's CEO David Goldstein.

In a candid and free-flowing conversation, we talk about how and why tourism traffic and spend is (way) up in Alberta, as well as the province's approach to Indigenous tourism partnerships, balancing big-ticket destinations like Banff with worthwhile places off the beaten path, deciding which global markets to focus marketing on, Alberta's evolving image in traveler's minds, and how Canada's tourism initiatives are a best-in-class model. Plus the best ski slopes in Alberta, and the lifelong travails of being an Ottawa Senators fan.

Matt Brown:

Hi everybody, it's No Show with Matt Brown and Jeff Borman. Does anyone know the ebbs and flows, ins and outs, weather patterns, and trail ratings of Canadian tourism like David Goldstein? As Bob and Doug Mackenzie used to say, no way, hoser. David is chief executive officer of Travel Alberta, which is the official destination management organization for the province of Alberta, working to develop, promote, and invest in tourism experiences throughout the province. Prior to that, he was president CEO of Destination Canada, president CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, and spent years in the broadcast and media industry. He is leading a long-term strategy for Alberta to grow the visitor economy to $25 billion annually by 2035. He is a superb chef, well-intentioned skier, lover of national lampoon style road trips. David, welcome to No Show.

David Goldstein:

Thanks, guys, for having me on. This is great.

Matt Brown:

One of my favorite Instagram accounts is Travel Alberta. And through it, you see a lens of the province that I, up until this point in my life had never seen. And I've noticed that the province has undergone a major brand refresh in recent years. The imagery is very diverse, very much a balance of culture and cuisine and nature, very sophisticated. You know, we're seeing a lot of luxury cabins and sexy people and sunlit skylines, and it looks great.

David Goldstein:

Everyone's sexy where I come from.

Matt Brown:

What was the genesis of the rebrand and what's the reception to some of your efforts been like over the last few years?

David Goldstein:

So that's a what great question to start off with. And it's a hard one, right? Because I think generally in the tourism business, everybody's focused on marketing or the demand side. And unless you really look at the supply side and the experience side, uh, I think I think a lot of destinations are missing out. You hear the saying all the time, well, we're changing the transmission as we're driving 100 miles an hour down the highway. Well, sometimes the car just stops, right? So during COVID, the car just stopped. And it gave us a really good opportunity to look under the hood at who we were as a destination, how we were representing ourselves, what was working, what wasn't working. We were like a lot of typical destinations, big, glorious uh shots of uh uh and and there are exquisite landscapes in Alberta from the mountains to the hoodoos. Like it's it's but often shots without people. And I think, you know, nowadays this is a real focus. And so I hope in the Instagram and the other stuff you've seen, you're actually going to see the people stories uh uh and the people who are part of that. We've tried to focus on our distinctive nature. So the the new, you know, a brand is not a tagline, but the tagline that we use is Canada's wild side, Canada's Alberta. We put we purposely put Canada in the window because people know the country. We're not trying to give a geography lesson. We we've spent a lot of time digging into the people stories. And so that's that that was the genesis of the uh of the brand shift. And we think it uh it's resonating great both here in the US and in the seven or eight different markets we're in around the world.

Matt Brown:

You've spoken often about legacy locations. And you know, in my mind, you know, Banff was sort of the international star for decades. But Travel Alberta is definitely spreading the love to Jasper and Dinosaur and Wood Buffalo National Parks, among many others. And as you just said, Alberta is so diverse. You know, you've got the Rockies, you've got the Badlands, you've got the cities. How do you balance what I would imagine is considerable economic and political pressure of promoting the province's sort of big ticket destinations? Look, these are the ones that are tried and true. They've worked for years, with uncovering, and I feel like you've you've done a lot of this over the last year or two, uncovering kind of lesser-known local rural experiences. Is everybody on board, or do you have to kind of shepherd them to where you want to go?

David Goldstein:

Well, we're pretty fortunate that we have the a really strong team Alberta approach. So a lot of the regions have come behind this. Listen, let's again, let's take a step back to during the COVID period. We had to take an honest look at ourselves. 65% of the visitor revenue for the province was happening during five months of the year. And that was happening in about five locations around the province, right? So we still love people to come to Banff in the summertime, but we don't have to sell Banff in the summertime. It it, you know, lots of people will come there. The question is how you disperse folks to other places, other parts of the province. What are the experiences they can have there? And then we had to take an honest look at the inventory of experiences or itineraries that we had in different parts of the province. We've got some upside and downsides. The upside is we have two really well-connected international airports. The upside and downside is we're not sitting on top of a big U.S. city, so there's not a lot of rubber tire traffic. So if people are familiar with Canada, you know, people in Quebec and Ontario or British Columbia, they have those big U.S. cities sitting beneath them. So they get a lot of rubber tire traffic. Um, that's good and bad for us. You know, it's it's bad because we don't get that volume. But the Americans or other travelers, we're a fly-to destination, so they're deliberately coming here. We and we have to give them the experiences that they're looking for. What that meant was we did a schematic during COVID to set up 10 tourism development zones around the province. This was a very deliberate strategy to say people are still going to come to Banff and like Louise and Jasper. What are the alternative itineraries or the add-on itineraries that we can give them, which in many cases are with a two and a half, three hour drive from one of the international airports, right? And then how do we invest with our partners to create those experiences? One of the biggest investments we made is in Indigenous tourism. We're the largest provincial investor in Indigenous tourism in the country right now. We've taken interesting uh findings from New Zealand and other places that have done it authentically and in very close partnership with Indigenous communities and an organization called Indigenous Tourism Alberta. This has been, we sort of triple down on this. Um, and then that's that that helps paint a different picture of the destination. So I don't really care if your listeners or anybody knows where the borders or the geography lesson of where Alberta is. I want them to come for the experiences.

Jeff Borman:

Yeah, over tourism is something that we've touched on a number of times over the years. And one of the solutions that's often proposed is dispersing those travelers, right? And the easiest example, I think, tends to be France. Paris is the most visited city in the world. Everyone goes. And what the French tourism ministry really needs to do, wants to do is show off how beautiful the rest of France is. Uh, Italy, you'd say the same thing about Venice. How do you actually do that though?

David Goldstein:

Well, it's you know, everybody says it. It's actually, you know, it's hard to do. And and and again, that's why we set up these deliberate zones. But the zones are not just like geographic lines on a map. They're they're literally areas that we we we've plotted out. And we work with our travel trade partners and we work with our in-house digital team and we work with by by by helping establish some of these new uh experiences and then putting in promotion behind them. You can't just market your way out of the problem, right? There has to be really cool stuff for people to do. Once you dig into that and you work with great entrepreneurs, because I mean, you know the industry, one of the challenges we have is because of the nature of the industry, they're typically undercapitalized, right? So if we can be that sort of first in, last in investment that gets those experiences up off the ground to get them tra uh to get them uh travel trade ready and then offer them up to uh our travel trade partners, uh both here in the states and around the world, that's the secret sauce. So we're not just a marketing agency, we're actually an investment agency as well. It's not an industry subsidy, it's it's very targeted investments in very important parts of the province. And then that's something that when we go on the road, and it happens all the time when I talk to my clients. I just came from a tour of Western Europe, all the all the big clients were so what's new, right? What's new? I actually have even a prettier dress to put in the window, as we say in the marketing business, right? So so that's part of the the the special thing that we're doing in Alberta.

Jeff Borman:

You know, I live in Texas, and if we could take any example, like if you can figure out how to like do a campaign, visit the tar sand. If we if we could learn how to visit Midland based on your example, that'd be great. We're struggling in Texas.

David Goldstein:

But you're not in the middle of no listen, I I I I'm not gonna opine on how my colleagues or how my friends in Texas do their job because you know they've got one of the best taglines on the world was don't mess with Texas. I don't even think they I don't even think they dream that up, right? Um, you know, nobody markets like Americans. I I'm gonna let them have that. But no, I mean there it doesn't come easily, like to earlier in your question. Like you have to be very deliberate about this. We have five UNESCO World Heritage Sites, right? But nobody when they're booking an itinerary is thinking about, well, I'm gonna go, or there might be a few people go, I want to go see all the world UNESCO heritage sites. No, I I want to go camping in Dinosaur Provincial Park, right? Like that that that's and how do I do glamping down in that area that's cool, right? That like that's the type of stuff that we're working on, and then working with glamping operators to to deliver a different kind of experience. That's what we're working on.

Matt Brown:

David, you were talking to two total nerds who absolutely plan trips based on UNESCO heritage sites. So we're the we might be the minority, but we're well, I'm talking through you to your listeners. We're proud, but we're strong. You say that nobody markets like America, but I gotta say, I feel like, and as I said at the top of the episode, that you know you've been working in Canadian tourism for a long time. Yeah, it seems like Canada just really has its act together. And on a on a provincial level, on a on a kind of federal level, on a larger level, the country just brings a different lens to all of this as far as coordination. Has that been your experience?

David Goldstein:

We have a very coordinated approach, right? Like I'm not gonna expend my competitors. We just have to hustle harder together. Okay. We sort of like the credo, at least when I was at Destination Canada, was uh, you know, you hunt alone, you dial. Uh, we had to marshal the resources from different parts of the country. And it's a big country and it's very diverse. This aligned approach takes a lot of work and faith. And and you know, Canada is a very big country. And in some ways, what they're selling in Atlanta, Canada is different from what I'm selling. But the but together we've had to figure out imagine if you had 13 kids in a family, like we're kind of the black sheep, right? Like, like, like, and that's okay, that's part of our brand. We're we're okay with that. You know, that I I was just in Washington speaking to a group, you know, everybody's very concerned about what's going on. I said, you know, you know, Canadians are generally modest, self-effacing, uh, you know, humble. I'm not that fucking Canadian. I'm a very different guy. So, so, and and and it's a very different spirit uh of where we're at, but it does come from an aligned approach, and everybody gets to play their part, right? Listen, Destination Canada's budget is smaller than California's. Like, like, like we're we're gonna have to do this as a team. Now, if I wanted to tag back to the beginning of your question, I do think Canada as a whole and we within Canada are are having a day in the sun, right? Yeah, um, I don't know if your listeners care about this stuff because uh this is a little bit more geeky, but we only look at revenue. We we we're not looking at visitors, which I think goes to the over tourism question that we were talking about earlier. Um, I I want higher level travelers, higher value travelers. Um, I'm not measuring packs per se. I'm measuring uh uh the value of those travelers. And uh so we, you know, our the if there was one big metric on our dashboard, it it's visitor spend. Uh Canada was up three percent last year, Alberta was up 12. Canada is up about two and a half this year, year to date, we're up nine. And so there's so Canada is doing well. Um, and I'm just a little competitive because we're we're we're doing better, but that has a lot to do with working together in each of these markets, particularly the US, which is still, no matter what goes on, the US is still our biggest market.

Matt Brown:

How do you decide like which global markets you want to prioritize? Is is the US the main out-of-country audience? And if they are, like who's who's after that ad spend-wise or just like the the focus of your your efforts?

David Goldstein:

There's a little bit of science and a little bit of uh a little bit of passion that goes into this process. We do a fairly uh deliberate econometric exercise. We we're number one, we're trying to achieve a sort of a balanced portfolio approach. So we could go all in. I could spend all of our time and money in the US, because it's our biggest account or our biggest, our biggest market. But to neglect those other markets, you know, leaves potentially leaves you vulnerable, right? We have a we have a nice mix in Alberta. Like I talked about visitor spend before, about half of the dollars in Alberta, visitor economy dollars, are actually Albertans just traveling around Alberta. It's that domestic money. The next 25% is other Canadians who like to come to Alberta. And then within that last 25%, it's about 60, 40 US versus rest of the world, right? I don't want to neglect the rest of the world. And so we go through an exercise and we look at indicators like proximity, air access, uh, whether there's visa requirements or not. Like there's a there's a matrix of about seven or eight criteria. And then we come up with a like literally, you know, before all the kids were talking about algorithms, we figured out the equations ourselves, right? So so it's very data driven. And then we sort of figure out uh we produce a business plan that goes to our board of directors that gets signed off on what we have found is a balanced market approach. So, like all of the markets together are not as big as the US, but you know, I spend a fair amount of time and we uh we have teams on the ground in Korea and Japan. Uh, you know, I just came back from the UK and France and Germany, like like these are all key players. And really, uh again, those are geographic states, right? Like within them are really key areas, right? Like like Mexico. I could say that we're active in the Mexico market. It's really Mexico City because there's a huge, huge group of very affluent people, and we have direct air access between Calgary and Mexico City. It's a pretty deliberative process and it's very data-driven.

Jeff Borman:

You know, in the US, we can't go a week these days without hearing an industry news publication or an earnings report from a major travel company talking about how Canadian travel to the US is down by half year over year and not recovering. Uh we also, uh for those of us who are a little more diligent here every week, uh, or we see the reports each week that Canadian occupancy and RevPAR are hitting all-time highs as Canadian travelers are spending domestically instead of coming to the US. Has there been a strategic approach that you've used either to leverage Canada for Canada and kind of rally that this year?

David Goldstein:

Uh listen, I think our federal government has tried to do that. I I'm not really I I'm not in that game. And I think going back to your earlier question about alignment, like we have really defined the swim lane. So the local DMOs, like Tourism Calgary and I've been, they're looking after the domestic market, right? Our focus is really international. The only time we do domestic campaigns, which are really deliberate, like after the forest fire in Jasper, we did a domestic campaign to tell people that Jasper was open and they're welcome back and there's cool stuff to do, right? But generally we stick to our swim lane, which is the international markets. Um, it's great that Canadians are traveling around Canada. Um, we haven't seen a huge shift in Alberta. Uh I think I think in Atlantic, Canada and other parts that they they they've seen that stay-at-home culture work. Like I said earlier, our international numbers are up. Uh, our international clients, like the the travel companies and the and and the travel trade businesses we work with, are really busy and are forecasting through next year really big numbers. So uh like again, I sound a little boastful for a Canadian, but I I I it's it's just uh um there is a buzz going on. And I don't want to get into well, they're you know, they're not going to the US to come in here. I uh that I'm agnostic on that. I just I I you know we just put our best, most positive uh uh uh foot forward and we're seeing great response.

Jeff Borman:

You know, I I think I would recommend a what would probably be a very bad long-term strategy to you. Uh I would, if I were you, go straight after the 70% of Americans who are not pleased with the way we're treating Canadians and market directly to them. Like if you don't like what your government's doing, come to Alberta. I bet there's real money to be made there. I would buy into that.

David Goldstein:

Yeah, maybe some private sector entrepreneur wants to do that. But you know what? Like, like, like the major focus, uh let's break it down, okay? Like the major focus of our activity in the US. I mean, yes, we have national coverage through big tour operators and that sort of stuff, but but like, you know, the collettes and the and and the talks and that, but I mean, our real fact, our director consumer focus is really California, Texas, and New York. And you know, people do want to do this red state, blue state thing. Like I I I I I interesting enough, some of our biggest gains are out of Texas last year, and and and we're seeing this huge surge, especially in shoulder season, like in the fall, of Americans from the south who just want to get away from the heat, right? Yeah, um, like they want to play golf in in August, September, October, uh, because it's not a hundred degrees, right? And like last I'm just getting the numbers, you know, uh almost as we speak. Like we had the biggest October in recorded history. Like we're like, like, and a lot of that's from the US. So I I I you know why? I don't I don't need to cast any sort of aspersions on it. It's just it's happening.

Matt Brown:

I wonder how the other provinces, like how your brethren in the tourism industry, because you're the the spike has been considerable, and I think for a long time, you know, the the the big cities on the coast kind of got a lot of this travel. I wonder A, what they think, and I'm sure it's all smiles and congratulations. And B, I wonder if kind of the the with the overall rise of kind of outdoor activity as a thing that people do and families do, that that has kind of helped um help the the boat rise over the last couple of decades.

David Goldstein:

Would you agree with that? Um, so there's a couple of things, and and my my colleagues back at home will kill me for saying this. Can't is just nice. Like in in in a in we never like to say we're nice and safe because we never wanted to lean into that. But in the with the world the way it is today, that doesn't hurt. Okay. Uh the second thing is, and I can because I used to represent the national stage, I can give you wonderful outdoor uh activities all over the all over the country, right? I think where we're sort of shining right now uh as a as a region, first of all, there the the the province has changed a lot in the last decade, 15 years. It's a our our our cities, our major cities uh are far more diverse. We have a culinary scene that that uh hasn't, you know, that that that's on fire. We have a cultural scene that's on fire. Like the people wouldn't think off the top that the second largest Afro-Caribbean festival in the country is in Edmonton, Alberta. Like so there's a the the the the the there's there's this vibe going on there right on the cusp of nature. And I think this is another thing. Like I live in Calgary, uh in the northwest end of Calgary. My wife and I can leave at six in the morning and we're in our ski boots and skiing at eight o'clock in in Lake Louise. Like, like so that that that not these sort of cool urban centers right on the edge of nature has been something that's really appealing. Europeans, Asians, uh even Americans, like like like like just to be able to get out of town that's it to to be in a major metropolitan area that's cool and diverse and hip, and then go out to to the mountains is fantastic. I don't know if that answered your question, but um I I think I think our image has evolved over the last few years.

Matt Brown:

It's time for the mystery question. David, you love all your children, of course, equally, um, even the black sheep. If you had to choose one underrated ski destination in all of Canada, it doesn't have to be Alberta, but you are under the microscope here. If you had to choose one ski destination that is kind of underrated, should get a little more credit and people should check out.

David Goldstein:

What would that be? I'll give you two. One that's gonna get me in shit, and and the other that is uh that is full on brand. Um I grew up in Ottawa, uh, so I grew up, I grew up in the east, and we used to go to Montremblac. Uh, but near Montranblac is a place called Mont Blanc, which is kind of like the where the local ski. And it's you know, it, you know, it's not it's not as jazzy, it's not as the the lines aren't long, and the you know, it's it's not as she she, but it's a it's a it's a great place for family skiing. Back in Alberta, you know, obviously sunshine and Lake Louise um are fantastic. Marmot Basin, which is in Jasper, if you haven't skied up there, uh it's got it's got sort of equivalent vertical. It's it's not as as as busy. It's a lot a bit of a longer drive, yes. Uh, but Jasper itself is just a jewel. And and and marmot's a great, great ski destination. And then there's another one, Nikiska, which is actually really close. It's like 45 minutes from Calgary. You know, the the the problem when you get to Alberta is you get spoiled by vertical, right? I'm gonna get a little technical here. So the ski geeks, right? You don't want to ski hills, right? You you ski mountains, right? But Nikiska, which is right outside of uh uh uh of Calgary, is a still a mountain ski experience, uh, but still has that local feel, kind of like Mont Blanc does next to Tromblan. So like like it's it it's really a unique sort of special experience. We have a dozen of those. Like the blessing of living in the shadow of the Rockies is that we have a we literally have a dozen of those experiences. Um, and for people who are prepared to come out there, the other thing, um, which I you know it struck me when I was in France talking to some operators, we have real spring skiing. Like that's that like that's something that you know, even some of the northern U.S. guys are are having a hard time holding on to snow later in the season. So uh like you come, if you guys are skiers, you come and visit me end of April, early May, and I will take you for some of the best spring skiing uh in your lives, like skiing in t-shirts. It's fantastic because we still have snow. Uh, I think Sunshine was last year open till the May 2-4 weekend, like like the May Long weekend. Like, like, like it's it's it's it's kind of a unique little thing in North America. We usually get the first snow and we have the last no.

Matt Brown:

Jeff, listen to that brand management. Isn't that a beautiful thing? And right on the edge of ski season. That's amazing. Thank you, David Goldstein, for being our guest today. It's been an absolute pleasure.

David Goldstein:

Thanks, gentlemen. Hope to talk to you again soon. I hope so.

Jeff Borman:

Now that we can finish the recording, what's your hockey team?

David Goldstein:

So I've got a great story. Hold on. Cue the recording. You paid for the whole seat, you're only gonna use the edge. Um, so I grew up in Ottawa and I'm old enough, you probably can't tell, but you I'm old enough. I'm a pre-senators Ottawa kid. So you had to be Canadians or Leafs, right? And usually the French kids, because Ottawa is kind of a bilingual town, the French kids were Canadians fans, and the and and the English kids followed the Leafs. Um, I was always a Canadians fan growing up. And and so in the old days, the CBC used to run uh hockey night in Canada on Saturday nights, and they would have the Maple Leafs game in English, and then Radio Canada, which is the French CBC, would have the Canadians game. So my buddies and I would get together in in the rec room and we'd watch the game on TV, we watch it on French CBC, we watch the Canadians on CBC turn the volume off and turn the play by play. A local radio station used to do, uh, used to do the play by play in English. So so I was a Canadians fan, and then the Sens come to town, then you had to make a choice, right? You're you gotta decide, you're gonna convert, you know.

Matt Brown:

This sounds like a religious decision to hear about it.

David Goldstein:

It is, man. It's hard to do that. We're actually the Moors and this place we're talking about in the 1890s. No, no, seriously, it's a conversion, right? So you gotta go through this. So I become a Sense fan, okay? They had a pretty good team for a while, like like was you know, Spezza and the you know, like they they had a good well, then I moved to Vancouver to take on this the destination canon job because that's where they're headquartered. And I'm like, I showed up at the arena when a friend of mine took me to it again. I'm like, I can't be a fucking Canucks fan. I'm not I'm not converting again. There's no there's no point to that. Like, I just I can't do it. So I lived there for five years, and you know, I would just go when the Sens were in town because then I would be that I'd be that jerk in the other guys, you know, I I'd wear my Sens jersey on anyway. I moved to Alberta about five years ago. And two things. First of all, the Sen sucked, and then they were they're getting better now, like they're they're rebuilding the team. But I was still a Sense fan because it kept me out of the Battle of Alberta. I didn't have to choose between the Oilers and the Flames. I could and then when you sell you tell people like, well, you're a Sense fan, and they just tilt your head their head like your dog died or something like that, they feel bad for you. But that's that's the story, boys. That's it, that's that's it. I'm still a sense fan.