Canada’s competition bureau is launching an inquiry into U.S.-based VIAD’s domination of the sightseeing attraction sector in Banff and Jasper national parks.
The move follows a more than three-month investigation into the Arizona-based company following complaints filed with the Competition Bureau of Canada (CBC) that its leasing of the Jasper SkyTram tightens the firm’s stranglehold on the market, and entrenches an unfair, illegal monopoly.
Despite those concerns, Parks Canada last summer approved VIAD’s leasing of the sky tram that competitors say provides the company’s Pursuit brand more than 90 per cent of the visitor pie.
Operators of Mt. Norquay, Sunshine and Lake Louise, which offer summer chair lift and gondola experiences, say Pursuit’s use of bundling its products — which offers 40 per cent discounts on them if passes to attractions are purchased — is predatory and squeezing them out of the market.
Along with the Jasper property, Pursuit now operates the Banff Gondola at Sulphur Mountain, Lake Minnewanka Cruise, Columbia Icefield Adventure, Jasper’s Maligne Lake Cruise and the Columbia Icefield Skywalk, which comprise the lion’s share of those markets’ paid sightseeing attractions.
It also owns the Brewster Express bus line and 10 hotels throughout those parks (two are in Banff), while also operating the iconic Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park.
The owner of Mt. Norquay noted Pursuit’s CEO Stewart Back had refused — for reasons of corporate confidentiality — to provide Banff Gondola visitor numbers since 2019 when asked for them by members of Banff Town Council last week.
“VIAD will not be able to hide from the competition bureau, which will have the power to have VIAD disclose its market power as part of the inquiry,” said Adam Waterous, chair of Liricon Capital.
Waterous said he’s hoping an inquiry will lead to an end to Pursuit’s bundling practices and even to it being forced to divest some of its properties.
“Recent amendments to the Competition Act deem mergers presumptively anticompetitive if they result in a combined market share exceeding 30 per cent,” Waterous said in an Oct. 1 letter to Banff Mayor Corrie DiManno, urging the town’s council to push the bureau to crack down on VIAD.
“Consequently, should the competition bureau break up VIAD’s monopoly by reducing its market share to 30 per cent of Banff and Jasper sightseeing attractions, VIAD will be forced to divest five of its now six attractions and be left with just the Sulphur Mountain Gondola.”
VIAD’s critics say its bundling practice has led to worsening traffic congestion and vehicle emissions on Banff streets.
In front the Town of Banff’s governance and finance committee on Oct. 15, Back said vehicle traffic along Mountain Avenue leading to its Sulphur Mountain Gondola has decreased by 19 per cent since 2019 due to joint efforts by it, the town and Parks Canada encouraging visitors to use public transit.
“Fifty per cent of the visitors to the Banff Gondola are on mass transportation (in 2024), up from 40 per cent last year,” said Back.
“Mode shift magic has been happening and I think it’s pretty impressive.”
In his presentation to the committee, Waterous said Back’s numbers were misleading, that the vehicular flow had actually increased “and has effectively lengthened our traffic congestion season.”
In a Sept. 5 letter to the competition bureau, Sunshine Village Corp. president Ralph Scurfield argued Pursuit’s dominance and predatory pricing was crowding out competing summer operations, including his ski resort’s gondola.
Despite record visitation to Banff National Park and free shuttle service between Sunshine and the Banff townsite, patronage numbers at his attraction have stalled, wrote Scurfield.
“We believe the single biggest detriment to Sunshine’s summer visitation has been the anticompetitive price bundling of VIAD-owned attractions sold to tourists. Incentive to purchase these attraction bundles has increased in recent years and has had negative effects on competitors, like Sunshine, in the sightseeing market,” he said in the letter.
“When accounting for travel time throughout the Rockies, The Pursuit Pass bundled offering effectively uses up all the time a traveller has on their holiday. There is no time, or opportunity, to explore competitive options.”
Parks Canada, meanwhile, had rejected Norquay’s application to construct a gondola running from the Banff townsite to the bottom the ski hill, citing “non-conformance with key park policy and legislation.“
Liricon has said a new gondola would capture some of the market from its Sulphur Mountain competitor, thus reducing vehicular traffic in the town.
“We took on these projects to reduce this congestion as a result of Parks Canada’s failure to address vehicular traffic. This failure has been detrimental to both the ecological integrity and visitor experience in the park,” Liricon’s Jan Waterous said last March in a written in response to Parks Canada’s decision.
Neither VIAD/Pursuit nor the Competition Bureau of Canada responded to requests for comment.
Parks Canada has said questions of anticompetitive behaviour are outside its jurisdiction, but that it would co-operate with any investigation by the federal competition bureau.