Seven million international travellers connect through Calgary International Airport every year without ever leaving the building. They land, walk to their gate, and fly out. Calgary gets the landing fees. The city gets nothing else.
Tourism Calgary and WestJet launched a program on June 10 to change that math and in doing so became the first city in Canada to offer a formal stopover program for international travellers.
The Calgary Stopover Program gives eligible WestJet passengers the option to add up to seven days in Calgary to their journey at no additional airfare cost. It launched targeting UK travellers flying WestJet's year-round service from London Heathrow and seasonal service from Edinburgh.
"Every year, 19 million passengers travel through YYC airports, and 36 per cent of those travellers only see the inside of this beautiful airport," said Alisha Reynolds, Tourism Calgary President and CEO at the launch event. "The CEO of Tourism Calgary thinks that they should see more of our city."
How it works
A UK traveller flying WestJet from London Heathrow to Vancouver can book Calgary as a stopover on the same itinerary. Instead of connecting straight through, they stay in Calgary for up to seven days before continuing to their final destination. The entire trip books as a single reservation through WestJet's multi-city booking tool. No extra airfare. No rebooking. No separate reservation.
Once in Calgary, stopover participants get access to 19 participating hotels with exclusive offers and the Calgary Attractions Pass — a discounted access card covering participating venues across the city including attractions, tours, and experiences.
Why this works and why other cities proved it first
Calgary is not inventing this model. It is borrowing one that has been running successfully in other countries for years and the results elsewhere are hard to argue with.
Icelandair pioneered the stopover concept in the 1960s, allowing passengers flying between North America and Europe to stop in Iceland at no extra airfare cost. For decades Iceland was a relatively unknown destination. The stopover program changed that. Iceland went from fewer than 500,000 visitors annually in 2010 to over two million by 2019 a 400 percent increase in less than a decade. Tourism became Iceland's largest industry. The stopover program is widely credited as the single biggest driver of that transformation.
Aer Lingus runs a similar program through Dublin, allowing North American travellers flying to Europe to stop in Ireland for up to six months without changing their ticket. Dublin has used the program to position itself as a European gateway destination rather than just a connecting airport.
Singapore's Changi Airport consistently ranked the world's best offers free city tours to passengers with layovers of five and a half hours or more. Helsinki Airport offers a free 24-hour Helsinki experience for connecting passengers. Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and Turkey have all built tourism industries partly on the back of converting connecting traffic into overnight visitors.
Calgary is the first Canadian city to formalize this approach. Given that WestJet operates one of the most extensive international route networks of any Canadian airline out of YYC, the timing makes sense.
The numbers behind the launch
International visitor spending in Calgary grew 15.6 per cent year-over-year in Q1 2026. International passenger volumes at YYC grew 9.6 per cent in the same period. Calgary's record-breaking 2025 saw more than 10.5 million visitors generate $3.3 billion in visitor spending.
The city is already attracting more international visitors and more international spending than a year ago. The Stopover Program converts existing transit traffic people already landing at YYC into overnight visitors rather than requiring entirely new routes to grow the number.
"Calgary is at the heart of WestJet's global hub strategy and proudly serves as a primary gateway for international visitors to our hometown city," said Steve McClelland, WestJet Vice-President, Partnership and Loyalty.
Why UK travellers specifically
UK travellers are already on planes that land in Calgary. WestJet flies year-round from London Heathrow and seasonally from Edinburgh established routes with consistent passenger volumes.
The UK connection to Alberta runs deeper than flights. British immigrants have been coming to Alberta since the late 1800s many of the ranching and farming families in southern Alberta have roots in Britain. The cultural connection is real and the interest in visiting Canada is high among UK travellers who have historically moved on from YYC without stopping.
The Rocky Mountains are the obvious draw from a UK perspective Banff and Lake Louise sit 90 minutes from downtown Calgary and are among the most recognizable landscapes in Canada to a British audience. But the program is designed to get people into Calgary itself, not just use the city as a Banff staging ground. The hotel offers and attractions pass direct visitors toward Calgary's restaurants, museums, cultural venues, and neighbourhoods.
What the Calgary Attractions Pass covers
The Calgary Attractions Pass gives stopover participants discounted access to participating venues across the city. The full list is at tourismcalgary.com. The 19 participating hotels span a range of price points and neighbourhoods downtown near Stephen Avenue, the Beltline, and options closer to the airport for shorter stays.
What this could become
The program launched as a pilot. UK routes are the starting point. If the numbers show that transit passengers are converting into meaningful hotel nights and local spending, the model expands to other WestJet international routes which currently include destinations across Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico, and the United States.
The Iceland example is instructive about scale. A small country with a population of 370,000 turned a stopover program into a $4 billion tourism industry. Calgary is not Iceland it is a major city with existing infrastructure, an established hotel base, world-class proximity to the Rockies, and a growing international profile from events like the Calgary Stampede. The ceiling on what a successful stopover program could mean for the city's tourism economy is genuinely significant.
To book a Calgary stopover or get more information visit tourismcalgary.com or westjet.com.
Sources:
Tourism Calgary and WestJet, Calgary Stopover Program press release, June 10, 2026 (globenewswire.com)
Yahoo News Canada, Why lay over when you can stay over, June 10, 2026 (ca.news.yahoo.com)
Daily Hive Calgary, A first-of-its-kind travel program in Canada just launched in Calgary, June 10, 2026 (dailyhive.com)
Icelandair, Stopover program history (icelandair.com)
Travel and Tour World, Canada to Transform Layovers with WestJet Calgary Stopover Program, June 11, 2026 (travelandtourworld.com)
