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WILLKOMMEN,
CAMPERS!
German visitors love Alberta’s open roads
BY STEVEN SANDOR
IF YOU STOP at a campsite in one of Alberta’s national or provincial parks, there’s a good chance you’re going to hear a lot of German being spoken.
German tourists are major contributors to the Alberta economy. In fact, to meet the demand, Condor, a major German leisure airline, began direct service to Edmonton in 2023. Condor connects to Calgary via its partnership with WestJet, Canada’s second-largest airline. Condor also connects to many major cities throughout Europe, with routes to major capitals like Budapest, Prague and Warsaw.
Travel Alberta has stated, in 2019, before COVID caused a global dip in travel, 118,000 Germans traveled to the province. That’s enough to fill Berlin’s Olympiastadion one and a half times. By 2024, German visits are expected to match and even surpass pre-COVID levels. Americans make up Alberta’s largest foreign visitor pool, with 1.2 million visits, while the province welcomes 187,000 visitors from the United Kingdom annually. Germany
is Alberta’s second-largest European trading partner, and the largest from the EU.
But there is something very special about German visitors to this province. They want to experience Alberta’s natural wonder and the glory of the open road. They are the biggest sector when it comes to renting recreational vehicles, which are rolling cabins you take on the highway and park in campgrounds.
CanaDream, a Canadian RV-rental giant, built a garage just minutes from Edmonton International Airport to support
Condor’s direct flights between Germany and the provincial capital. A whopping 60 per cent of Canadadream’s international business comes from German visitors. So, it made sense to open a garage so close to Condor’s arrival point. Visitors get off the plane, grab their bags and, within minutes, are getting into their RVs.
“The Germans are great explorers,” said Kathryn Munro, CanaDream’s International Director of Sales and Marketing. “The Germans also take a lot of holidays. They get extended holidays, whereas in Canada and the U.S., people’s average holidays might be seven to 10 days. In Germany, the average holiday is up to three weeks.” Germans average 30 days of holiday time a year, the most for any country that connects directly to Edmonton via air.
“Canada is a big destination for the Germans. They love the nature, they love the outdoors, they love getting out and exploring. Combining Canada with an RV, it’s a perfect combination for them.”
Paul Hawes is the vice president, Destination Development and Marketing for Explore Edmonton. He said that, in order for Condor to agree to come to Edmonton, the airline had to be sure that there would be a major RV depot nearby. Without the RVs, the airline wasn’t going to make the deal.
“When we first learned of Condor coming in, we approached Canadream in turn to expand their fleet... and here we are, with 50 brand new RVs ready to roll for our German guests.”
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