Protecting travellers and supporting tourism

Overview

The Traveller Protection and Destination Development Act (formerly Bill 16), protects travellers from hidden or misleading fees and ensures destination marketing fees collected for tourism promotion are used as intended, to support and enhance local destinations across Alberta. These destination marketing fees are fees that tourism businesses may voluntarily charge to customers to support local destination marketing and development.

The act requires all mandatory fees on accommodations or tourism experiences to be clearly disclosed at the time of booking to prohibit businesses from surprising customers with hidden fees at the end of their stay. It also sets clear parameters for how destination marketing fees are collected, managed, and reinvested to support tourism marketing and development in the communities where they are collected.

Under the act, destination marketing fees will continue to be industry-led, with tourism businesses maintaining the ability to choose whether to charge these fees to their customers and destination organizations maintaining the ability to set the rate of the fees locally.

The Traveller Protection and Destination Development Act is part of the Alberta government’s commitment to maintain Alberta’s reputation as a premier travel destination and to grow the tourism economy to $25 billion in annual visitor spending by 2035.

Key changes

The Traveller Protection and Destination Development Act:

• creates a framework for the voluntary collection, management, and reinvestment of destination marketing fees across the province to ensure fees are used to deliver measurable economic benefits for participating businesses and local economies, and end the practice of fees being retained for profit
• establishes clear requirements for the designation, operations, and governance of one destination marketing organization and, if applicable, accommodation association per region to unify destination leadership and enable clear communication with visitors 
• ensures destination marketing fees may only be charged in a geographic area where a designated destination marketing organization exists to ensure consumers are not charged misleading fees
• requires third party management of destination marketing fees by a trustee to ensure transparency reporting and accountability mechanisms
• includes amendments to the Consumer Protection Act to require that all mandatory fees charged to consumers on overnight accommodations or tourism experiences be disclosed at the time of booking to prevent surprise checkout costs

For more information, see the Traveller Protection and Destination Development Act fact sheet.

Next steps

The Traveller Protection and Destination Development Act will come into force on January 1, 2027.
 
Existing organizations and operators will need to come into compliance by January 1, 2027, including applying for designation and preparing necessary documentation.

News

• Legislation targets tourism fee transparency (February 25, 2026)