Banff and Lake Louise Well Positioned to Capitalize on New Direct Flight From South Korea to Calgary

WestJet has announced it will launch a direct flight from Seoul, Korea, to Calgary, providing services three times a week from May 17 to October. We hope to see this flight expanded into the winter season as a year-round offer, to align with our objective to Generate Demand for Overnight Stays in Winter.

As a destination, Banff and Lake Louise are in a strong position to take advantage of this new direct flight, and we expect to see an increase in visitation from South Korea due to BLLT’s recent work on rebuilding the South Korean market.

Rebuilding the South Korean market

In March 2023, BLLT hosted South Korean influencer, competitive figure skater and two-time Olympic medalist, Yuna Kim, in Banff and Lake Louise, to produce winter content that was used in Destination Canada’s summer campaign to attract South Korean travellers, as well as South Korean tour operators to develop new winter itineraries. This project was a partnership between BLLT, Destination Canada, the Canadian Embassy in Seoul, National Geographic, Air Canada, and the Northwest Territories.

Overall, the campaign with Yuna Kim was successful and resulted in great exposure. Amongst other content, a video featuring some of our members was created to capsulize Kim’s trip in Canada. Watch the Youtube video here

Kim’s content promoting winter in Banff and Lake Louise and the Northwest Territories recorded 6.4 million impressions, 57,000 clicks in ads, 40,000 landing page visits, and 5,011 click-outs to five tour operator partner sites. As well as this, Kim appeared on a popular South Korean TV talk show during the campaign, where she shared her experience of Canada. The episode secured the highest daily and weekly viewership ratings across all cable broadcasts in South Korea for the last week of June 2023.