Tourism Jasper and Travel Alberta voluntarily deleted a picture on their Instagram accounts after being made aware the photo appears to depict two people illegally camping in the back of their car in Jasper National Park, Sept. 12.
The 51暗网 reached out to both organizations after receiving several complaints from the public who were concerned the destination marketing organizations were promoting illegal camping by sharing the photo on social media.
The photo in question comes at a sensitive time when the municipality has seen a spike in illegal camping in town this summer.
鈥淥ne of the goals of our marketing efforts here at Tourism Jasper is to provide inspiration to prospective and current visitors, showing them Jasper鈥檚 beauty and opportunities for adventure through the eyes of their fellow explorers,鈥� wrote Kyle Harms, managing director for Tourism Jasper.
鈥淚t is never our intention to encourage visitors to engage in activities that are illegal or harmful to the park. As such, we have removed an image from our social media feeds in response to some concerns that the image could be misconstrued as the wrong kind of inspiration.鈥�
In August, Parks Canada said it had not seen an increase in the number of illegal campers in Jasper National Park, but reports out of Banff indicate illegal camping is on the rise in Banff National Park.
This isn鈥檛 the first photo to appear on Tourism Jasper鈥檚 Instagram feed that appears to show someone camping illegally. Scrolling through the organization鈥檚 account there were at least two others published in the past six weeks, including one that appears to show an illegal fire.
Harms acknowledged the public鈥檚 concern in a follow-up interview and said his organization is reaching out to the photographers who originally took the pictures to get more information.
鈥淲e are doing our due diligence to follow up with the photographers to see if they can provide proof or reason as to why they were in those areas,鈥� said Harms, adding that in some cases photographers have a permit from Parks Canada to take pictures.
鈥淏ased on the responses we hear from the photographers we will take the appropriate action and that may mean removing the photos, but we want to take that important first step before we remove everything.鈥�
Travel Alberta also deleted the photo in question.
鈥淭his afternoon we deleted the image as our goal is to promote responsible recreation, use and activity in all parks and to not mislead travellers as to the experiences available,鈥� wrote Jennifer Anderson, director of communications for Travel Alberta.
Paul Clarke
[email protected]
