Moxy Banff

Moxy Banff opened April 11, 2024 on Banff Avenue, inside the shell of the Banff Voyager Inn: the town's first commercial motor hotel, built in 1964. Drumheller-based Canalta Hotels spent roughly $30 million converting the independent property into a 109-room Marriott Moxy, keeping the original Rundle stone walls and mid-century form while rebuilding the brand from the ground up. The conversion won the Lifestyle Hotel category at the 2025 Hospitality Design Awards.

The place

Moxy Banff sits directly on Banff Avenue, the town's main commercial spine inside Banff National Park, a short walk from the Bow River and the shops and restaurants that anchor downtown. It's a drive-up, walkable-town location rather than a resort compound, putting guests within reach of the gondola, hiking trailheads, and the townsite's restaurant scene without a car. The site itself has been a hotel address since 1964, giving Moxy an unusually long institutional memory for a brand better known for ground-up builds.

The concept

The hotel occupies the former Banff Voyager Inn, a Rundle-stone motor hotel built in 1964 as the town's first commercial drive-up property: a building type designed around cars pulling straight up to the room door, a relic of pre-interstate road-trip tourism in the Canadian Rockies. Drumheller-based Canalta Hotels bought the site and, working with Marriott, replaced the independent Voyager Inn flag entirely with Moxy, Marriott's youth-oriented, design-forward brand, in a redevelopment reported at roughly $30 million. Architecture firm Metafor Studio modernized the exterior while retaining the original Rundle stone walls and the building's low, mid-century silhouette and precast guest wings; New York-based Workshop/APD handled interiors, leaning into a deliberately retro, ski-town aesthetic (industrial lighting, warm timber, and a basement neon photo wall) rather than erasing the building's 1960s origins. The project won the Lifestyle Hotel category at the 2025 Hospitality Design Awards, a rare distinction for a brand conversion rather than a new build, and was named to CNN Travel's Sexiest New Hotels for 2024. It opened April 11, 2024.

Dining & wellness

Food and drink center on Bar Moxy, the brand's signature all-day bar-and-lobby format, paired with a restored 1966 VW Kombi van operating as an on-site food truck serving items like Alberta brisket poutine, flatbreads, and Reuben sandwiches, plus a 24/7 takeaway counter and breakfast service. The Voyager Room, a dedicated lounge stocked with 200-plus vinyl records and a vintage Klipsch Heritage hi-fi system, functions as the hotel's social and entertainment space. Wellness and recreation extend to a year-round heated courtyard with two hot tubs, a fitness center equipped with Peloton bikes, and 24/7 ski, snowboard, and bike lockers geared to the property's four-season mountain-town guest.