Summer is winding down in Alberta and Tourism Calgary is launching a major US marketing campaign to entice American tourists to consider spending their higher dollars here.

For many Canadians the lower loonie has kept them at home this summer and many are taking advantage of Alberta’s local attractions.

For the first time, the Lugg family bought a season pass to Calaway Park and Cam and Jen say they believe they've gotten their money's worth this year.

“We've been coming six or seven times this year,” said Jen.

“It’s a nice way to get out of the city and the kids to have a lot of fun,” said Cam.

Attendance numbers show that many people were looking for affordable things to do locally this summer in response to the lower Canadian dollar.

Bob Williams is Calaway Park’s general manager and says numbers are up slightly from last year, which was a record year.

“Calaway Park is not recession proof but we are recession resistant,” said Williams.  “We had the best May we've had in probably our history. June was a little bit off by weather, July was flat.”

Trish Exton-Parder from the Calgary Zoo says they are also seeing good numbers.

“Around 400,000 over July and August, which is really good for us, and we're tracking really well until the end of the year,” she said.

Tourism Calgary says it has been a solid season for leisure travel across the city and that people are choosing to staycation.

“Canadians have looked at that dollar below the border and said oh maybe we'll stay home this year, what do we have to do in Calgary? So we're really seeing a good uptake in that area,” said Cindy Ady from Tourism Calgary.

Business travel is down by about four percent and experts say that's tough for a city where 25 percent of the revenue for tourism comes from business travellers.

The push is now on to promote the city south of the border.

“Everything we do is research driven now so we're looking for markets where we get that and we don't just sprinkle it like fairy dust, we are actually very specific about what markets we enter and how we enter them,” said Ady.

Tourism Calgary says California, Texas and New York are the best bets for investing marketing dollars as they give the best return.

(With files from Ina Sidhu)