Research, Reports, Resources. Go Nuts!

Municipalities, private businesses, coalitions, chambers - everyone wants to know the secret sauce on how to integrate outdoor recreation as a form of economic development. Time to get started. And you might as well grab that notepad. This is good stuff (and cameos from GOA member Granite Backcountry!).

Why Granite Outdoor? Well let’s take a look at what’s happening nationally. Outdoor business alliances across the country—from Alaska to New Mexico, North Carolina to New Hampshire, Michigan to Idaho—have joined forces to elevate the importance of a thriving outdoor industry. Power in numbers.

How to prepare workforce opportunities in the outdoor recreation industry, currently and in the future. Through this work, a competency-based Outdoor Recreation pathway has been developed that can exist within the Career & Technical Education (CTE) programming currently available in a region.

UNH Extension worked with the Ossipee Economic Development Committee and the greater Ossipee community to consider how to better connect its villages with its natural assets. The community considered creating a rail trail through the villages of Ossipee to connect to other existing trails in the region.

Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR) partnered with Oregon State University’s Center for the Outdoor Recreation Economy (CORE) to look deeper into the career paths, workforce needs, and future opportunities across America’s Outdoor Recreation Economy

More than half (54%) of Americans ages 6 and over participated in at least one outdoor activity in 2021, and the outdoor recreation participant base grew 2.2% in 2021 to over 164 million participants. This growing number of outdoor enthusiasts, however, did not fundamentally alter long-term declines in high-frequency or “core” outdoor participation.