The Otter Hotel

The Otter Hotel is the quieter of two new hotels that Banff Caribou Properties carved out of the former Inns of Banff site in Uptown Banff, opening in November 2024 with 174 rooms alongside its livelier sibling, Hotel Canoe & Suites. Where Canoe courts an adventure crowd, the Otter is built for guests who want mountain views and a slower pace, anchored by the in-house restaurant Good Folk and a rooftop hot-pool deck shared between both properties.

The place

The Otter Hotel sits at 600 Banff Avenue in Uptown Banff, a few minutes' walk north of the town's central shopping and restaurant strip and backing onto lodgepole pine forest at the edge of Banff National Park. The uptown pocket trades the density of downtown Banff Avenue for a quieter, more residential feel while keeping guests within walking distance of galleries, cafés and the gondola and hot springs shuttle routes; the hotel also supplies a complimentary Roam Banff transit pass.

The concept

The Otter opened alongside its sibling, Hotel Canoe & Suites, on the site of the former Inns of Banff (also known historically as the Swiss Village Hotel), which Banff Caribou Properties has owned since 2005 and rebuilt as two distinct four-star hotels rather than one larger property. Where Canoe & Suites is pitched at an adventure-oriented, activity-driven crowd, the Otter is the deliberately calmer counterpart, its interiors leaning into contemporary alpine materials — timber, stone, muted tones — over the brighter, trail-ready look of its sister property. Splitting one redevelopment into two differently branded hotels lets Banff Caribou Properties run a single shared site — and shared back-of-house infrastructure — while still merchandising two distinct guest experiences and two separate restaurant concepts.

Dining & wellness

Good Folk is the Otter's in-house restaurant, built around Canadian and Rocky Mountain-inspired dishes — Alberta prime rib and local rainbow trout among them — sourced from regional producers, developed with Calgary restaurateurs Dwayne and Alberta Ennest, who also created Sudden Sally at neighboring Hotel Canoe & Suites. The two hotels share a rooftop wellness deck — hot pools, a sauna and lounge seating with Rocky Mountain views — the one amenity explicitly built to serve guests of both properties.