EXEC: Outdoor Participation Holding Onto Pandemic-Influenced Gains

Outdoor participation has proven sticky as participation grew in 2021, according to the Outdoor Foundation’s recently released 2022 Outdoor Participation Trends Report, which showed that outdoor participants increased by 6.9 percent since the pandemic began in early 2020, with the number of new and returning (lapsed) outdoor participants up 26 percent.

“There was a reasonable expectation that during 2021, the second year of the pandemic, outdoor participation would return to 2019 levels as indoor activity, including, dining, sporting events, fitness centers, and gyms, reopened,” the study states. “The 2021 data indicates that participation in outdoor recreation retained momentum in 2021. This data indicates that outdoor recreation is ‘sticky,’ once someone begins to participate, they are likely to continue to participate,” the report continued.

Overall, 164.2 million, or 54 percent of Americans ages six and older, participated in outdoor recreation at least once in 2021, up 2.2 percent year-over-year. The highest number of participants on record.

The number of kids who participated in outdoor recreation was also up. Since 2019, girls ages 6-to-12 participated 4.9 percent higher, and girls 13-to-17 are participating at 5.3 percent higher. Males ages 13-to-24 were less impacted by the pandemic, and their participation rate increased by less than 2 percent.

The report found that new outdoor participants are more diverse than the overall outdoor participant, and the number of participants 55 years and older has grown more than 14 percent since 2019. However, high frequency or “core” participation in outdoor recreation declined, including among youth (outdoor recreation “core” participant is defined as someone who participates 51 times or more in outdoor recreation in the past 12 months, has declined from 71.9 percent in 2007 to 58.7 percent of the participant base in 2021. The number of core participants has declined from 99.5 million in 2007 to 96.4 million today).

Read the full article from SGB Media here.