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Outdoor recreation in Colorado, U.S. shines during pandemic

By November 9, 2021 | updated 4 years ago

Women Mountain Biking (Photo) Credit Sportstock (iStock) (copy)
FILE PHOTO: One of the most popular activities in the Breckenridge area during summer is mountain biking.
Sportstock (iStock)

Despite pandemic shutdowns, the outdoor recreation industry’s economic impact nationwide grew by more than $228.2 billion from 2019 to 2020, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Tuesday.

Outdoor recreation generated more than $688 billion in economic output, accounted for 3% of U.S. employees and is estimated to create 4.3 million jobs, according to the report. In Colorado, the industry represented 2.5% of the state’s gross domestic product. That’s a drop from the 3.1% it represented in 2019, the report shows.

Colorado also lost 19.5% of its outdoor recreation employees. Wyoming saw a 24.8% decrease, while New Mexico’s outdoor workforce shrank 21.9%.

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“The outdoor economy is actually bigger than the fossil fuel economy in the United States,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said in a Tuesday morning news conference hosted by the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, a group of outdoor industry trade groups. Shaheen and former Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner co-sponsored the Great American Outdoors Act, which then-President Donald Trump signed into law in 2020.

“Despite the pandemic, public lands and water closures, canceled trips and travel, gathering restrictions, supply chain issues and more, the outdoor recreation economy is a huge contributor to national and local economies,” said Jessica Turner, president of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable. “This data, along with what we have seen throughout the past year and a half, proves how vital continued investments in our public lands and waters and recreation infrastructure are to the national and local economies and how communities big and small, rural and urban, benefit from outdoor recreation.”

The big outdoor recreation winners included boating, fishing, hunting and recreational vehicle use.

“When we look at what happened during COVID-19, in terms of outdoor participation, the numbers are way up,” said Lise Aangeenbrug, executive director of the Outdoor Industry Association. “In fact, it was the single largest increase in any year we’ve ever found, and we’ve been tracking this for 15 years.

“Outdoor spaces became flooded. It was (a place) of refuge to safely socialize for your physical and mental health and recover from screen fatigue. We don’t yet have a way to measure that economic impact, but we know it has one.”

Some other Colorado stats from the report:

  • Colorado’s level of “outdoor recreation value add” amounted to $9.55 billion in 2020.
  • There were 120,063 Colorado employees working in outdoor recreation, earning an estimated $5.67 billion in compensation.
  • Of all the outdoor recreation activities in Colorado, most were “snow activities” with 1.15 million, followed by “boating/fishing” with 533,600.

In addition to RVs and boating/fishing bump, the hunting industry saw boosted numbers in 2020.

“Hunting continues to be on an upward trend, as far as participation, in these recent years,” said Kelly Reisdorf, chief of communications for Vista Outdoor and general manager of Venor. “Hunting license sales in the calendar year 2020 were up 5% over the prior year. And while it’s in the middle of hunting season right now, all signs are pointing to continued sustainment of these trends.”

Hunting participation had been on an 11-year decline prior to 2020’s bump in numbers.

A link to the study can be found at bea.gov.

Dennis Huspeni

Reporter

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