Travel Manitoba News
Travel Manitobas AGM is November 3
Where: Delta Hotel Winnipeg
When: November 3
We will also be live streaming the event for those who cannot attend in-person.
Agenda
7:30 a.m. – Coffee and networking
8:00 a.m. – AGM begins
- Blessing and Welcome
- Remarks from Angela Cassie, Interim President and CEO, Travel Manitoba
- Remarks from Drew Fisher, Interim Vice-Chair, Travel Manitoba Board of Directors
- Keynote from Andy Pray, CEO/Co-founder, Wild Signal
9:15 a.m. – Coffee and networking
Local News
Manitoba tourism reached new heights in 2025
Despite a devastating wildfire season, tourism in Manitoba hit record highs in 2025.
The province welcomed more than 11 million visitors who spent a total of $2.4 billion, generating nearly $450 million in provincial tax revenues, Travel Manitoba announced on Tuesday.
“Manitoba is a bit of a hidden secret, so it’s really exciting to see more and more people from across the country and internationally discovering everything that we have to offer,” said Angela Cassie, interim president and CEO of the Crown corporation.
Manitobans accounted for the bulk of tourism, with 9.37 million of the total 11.1 million visits. Spending grew 6.6 per cent year-over-year to $1.27 billion.
Around 1.13 million Canadians from other provinces visited Manitoba, a 15.3 per cent increase, and they spent $6.14 million (28.3 per cent more than in 2024).
United States and other international tourism also grew: visits increased by 50 per cent and 52 per cent, respectively. (Around 471,000 Americans visited in 2025, while 111,000 came from international countries. Spending hit $361 million and $151 million, respectively.)
National News
Alberta’s gopher museum closed until further notice as owners find new facility.
A quirky Alberta roadside attraction that has delighted travellers for decades with its stuffed rodents in tiny costumes is closed until further notice.
The World Famous Gopher Hole Museum, located in Torrington, a hamlet about 120 kilometres north of Calgary, made the announcement online earlier this week.
Laural Kurta, museum director, said she was forced to close the doors because the two historical buildings that house the exhibits need to be replaced.
“We have done every patch repair, staple, spackle, everything we could possibly do, and it is just at its end,” Kurta said in an interview Tuesday.
She added that the collection needs to be heat and humidity controlled because of the taxidermy, and the buildings can no longer sustain it.
“Nobody thought this place would last more than five years,” she said. “The museum has now been open for 30, and it’s busier than ever.”
The museum closed its doors last Tuesday. It was in a former century-old schoolhouse joined by a small hallway to a grain elevator office.
Haines Junction, Yukon, has long been a popular stopping point for people travelling along the Alaska Highway.
And some tourism operators in the small community of roughly 1,000 people say they’re seeing more visitors choose Haines Junction and the surrounding Kluane region as a destination of its own, instead of just a stop on the way to or from Alaska.
According to the Yukon government, 69,418 vehicles travelled between Whitehorse and Haines Junction during the first seven months of 2026. That is a 7.9 per cent increase over pre-pandemic levels.
At the same time, tourism officials say the number of Alaska border crossings at the Beaver Creek port-of-entry, up the Alaska Highway from Haines Junction, is still slightly below pre-pandemic levels.
This signals “a fundamental shift in travel patterns,” a tourism department spokesperson told CBC News in an email.
“Visitors are increasingly arriving in the Yukon by air, and choosing to spend time in the Haines Junction region as a destination, rather than using it as a waypoint on the traditional Alaska road trip,” they wrote.
International News
Barcelona launches ‘selective’ tourism strategy to tackle overcrowding
Barcelona is changing the way it promotes itself to visitors, moving away from attracting ever-growing tourist numbers towards a more selective model designed to influence who visits, why they come and where they spend their time.
At the heart of the new strategy is algorithmic recommendation technology similar to that used by streaming platforms such as Netflix. Rather than simply directing visitors towards Barcelona’s best-known attractions, the system will provide personalized recommendations based on individual interests, while also helping distribute tourists away from overcrowded hotspots.
The shift comes as Barcelona continues to grapple with the consequences of overtourism. Around 16 million tourists visit the Spanish city each year, approximately ten times its number of inhabitants, while Spain is set to overtake France as the world’s most visited country by 2040.
Tensions between visitors and residents have repeatedly surfaced in recent years, reaching particularly visible levels during the summers of 2024 and 2025, when protesters used water guns against tourists to express their frustration over mass tourism.
Coolcations: tourism boom is taking a toll on chillier destinations
Rising numbers of visitors headed for destinations in northern Europe in the summer of 2026, seeking respite from the heat.
For years, summer holidays in Europe have followed a familiar pattern: head south in search of sunshine. But climate change is beginning to turn that logic on its head.
As temperatures rise across southern Europe, traditionally popular destinations are facing increasingly difficult summer conditions, from extreme hot temperatures to wildfires and water shortages.
Rather than abandoning summer travel, some tourists are beginning to change the destinations they want to spend time in. The trend has even acquired a name: the “coolcation”. For an individual traveller, this can be a sensible response to rising temperatures. A cooler destination can make outdoor activities more comfortable and allow people to continue taking summer holidays while avoiding the most intense heat.
