Lethbridge featured in 'The Amazing Race Canada,' officials hope for tourism boost

Contestants are shown in Lethbridge on a Season 8 episode of 'The Amazing Race Canada.'

Teams on the eighth season of The Amazing Race Canada were in Lethbridge for an episode of the show that aired on CTV this week, and local officials hope it will help tourism.

The one-hour episode, the second of Season 8, aired Tuesday though it was in the spring that the footage was filmed.

"We found out in January they would be in Lethbridge to film this season," said Tourism Lethbridge CEO Erin Crane. "There’s been a lot of planning, there was a lot of setting up the sites and picking the sites that they wanted to go to."

Crane says more than 200 people were hired to support the filming of the episode, resulting in a nice bump for the economy.

"Not only the hiring of 200 support staff, but the staying in hotels, the eating out at restaurants, they were shopping within the city. It was amazing to see, and all of that provides economic impact into our area."

Tourism Lethbridge is hoping the episode will inspired people to visit the city.

"This is going to open up so many doors and get us into so many new households that maybe we couldn't have reached before," said Crane.

"It also, hopefully gets people interested in learning more about Lethbridge and gets them thinking 'oh I haven't thought about them, maybe we can include them in our summer plans,'" added Trevor Lewington, CEO of Economic Development Lethbridge. "It's always great for the city to have natural exposure like that and to highlight some of the great amenities of our community."

In June, the city’s economic standing policy committee passed a resolution to explore establishing a film commission in the city as a way to attract more productions to the region.

"There is a lot of filming that goes around Lethbridge and southern Alberta," said Mayor Blaine Hyggen. "We know all of the funding that has gone into different grants and stuff through filming in Alberta so we want to be part of that. Lethbridge is great to showcase, not only at this level, but hopefully into the future."

Tourism Lethbridge, along with the Downtown BRZ, hosted an unofficial viewing party and scavenger hunt to celebrate the airing of the episode at Festival Square.

"A national show, how exciting is this,” said Hyggen. "To see this come through Lethbridge, showcase Lethbridge, we know how wonderful Lethbridge is, but to show it off to the rest of the country is just amazing."