Our senior research analyst, Carson Risner, will be attending the 2024 Oregon Outdoor Recreation Summit this week, December 5-7th. The event is organized and hosted by the Oregon Trails Coalition, whose mission is to support, promote, and advocate for the preservation, development, and stewardship of a statewide network of sustainable trails.
Earth Economics has significant experience with statewide economic analysis of outdoor recreation, having completed studies for Washington state in 2015, 2020, and 2022. Two updates—one for state-managed lands, and another for all outdoor recreation in the state—are currently in process. We have also completed two statewide economic studies of outdoor recreation in Oregon, as well as several other more-focused projects (see below).
With each study, we have improved our methodologies, focusing on developing models that more closely match real-world visitation with local spending opportunities. This includes innovations in tracking visitor movements and origins (leveraging anonymized mobile device data), and the use of vehicle routing tools to more precisely identify local spending areas. In combination with point-of-interest data (used by live-time vehicle routing platforms), we are able to identify the relative presence of each industry within a 50-mile drive of park entrances, and apportion visitor spending accordingly. We believe this gives us unparalleled insight into visitorship and the local contribution of visitor spending by outdoor recreationists, which can provide important context for recreation managers, economic development agencies, and outdoor recreation industries.
If you are interested in learning more about our approach to outdoor recreation analysis, please reach out.
Selected earth economics outdoor recreation studies:
