Photo Courtesy Tourism Medicine Hat
Tourism Medicine Hat added another Sunshine Trolley to their fleet at the end of 2025, capping a year of growth among the organization's flagship programs.
zmason@medicinehatnews.com
An early look at last year’s tourism numbers shows a solid performance for the 2025 year, with key growth registered in several of Tourism Medicine Hat’s flagship programs.
The biggest headline in tourism in 2025 was the addition of another Sunshine Trolley to the fleet. But the new trolley is just an indicator of a broader success.
“The trolley captures people’s attention and imagination. But the growth in tours delivered, that’s the number one achievement,” says director of Tourism Medicine Hat Jace Anderson.
Tourism Medicine Hat delivered more than 360 tours on the trolleys last year, a year-over-year increase of 50 per cent. The new trolley, added at the very end of the 2025 season, will provide the capacity for further growth in 2026.
“The immediate impact that has to not only visitation and pride of place, but to local business, community and economy is significant.
“It speaks to the interest and demand for both locals and for visitors, which as been really high for both,” he says.
Between 2024 and 2025, ticketed tour offerings increased from 92 to 121. With a focus on food, beverage, and activities, these tour offerings shared revenue with more than 40 small businesses.
School tours also expanded in 2025, with Tourism Medicine Hat delivering 96 tours over the year, 14 more than 2024 and 38 more than 2023.
Traffic at the Visitor Centre trended down slightly year-over-year, experiencing a drop off of about 10 per cent. Anderson says it was an expected dip.
“We’re hearing a pretty consistent U.S. drive traffic decrease across Canada being in that nine per cent range, and certainly that’s reflective of that,” he said.
Still, the United States remained the top country of origin for international travellers checking in at the visitor centre.
American visitors most often hailed from Minnesota, followed by Missouri, Florida and California. Anderson says those trends represent the results of targeted marketing by Travel Alberta, as well as Medicine Hat’s convenient location for Eastern Seaboard roadtrippers.
Of the 128 countries represented in last year’s tourism data, the top countries of origin were the U.S., Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France, in that order.
“We see visitors from every continent, which is really encouraging,” said Anderson.
“I think it speaks to both the interest and the multinational population and activity that we have here, so a lot of these travellers are visiting friends and relatives.”
Anderson says the defence industry and the nearby Suffield base also influences the types of travellers who are most represented in tourism data.
Still, Anderson says the biggest market for regional tourism remains Albertans travelling within Alberta.
“Our number one market is Calgary, just be adjacency and market size, and Edmonton continues to grow with the visitation we’re seeing in Medicine Hat.”
Traffic on the online resources offered by Tourism Medicine Hat also improved last year, with 104,000 users accessing the online digital experience guide and 60,000 people accessing the online ticketing platform.
Anderson says the metrics paint a picture of a robust year for tourism in the region, but there’s still some key areas and opportunities that he will be aiming to exploit in 2026.
“Big picture, 2025 was a good year,” he said. “We’re looking forward to 2026 but not from a place of feeling like 2025 missed, but as an opportunity to grow.”
Looking ahead, Anderson says the upcoming Special Olympics represent an exceptional opportunity to cultivate that kind of growth.
“There’s some large scale sports and events that are already on our calendar that will have a material impact on that visitor economy that we’re talking about,” he said.
“We’re pleased with that work, because those are long-haul, long-timeframe efforts. They don’t happen overnight. So we’re really, really encouraged to see the community winning in that space.”
