Data & Methodology

All economic data on this site comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account (ORSA). Congress mandated the creation of this account through the Outdoor Recreation Jobs and Economic Impact Act of 2016 (P.L. 114-249), and the BEA has published annual data since 2012.

The satellite account extends the BEA's standard national income and product accounts to isolate the economic activity attributable to outdoor recreation. It uses the same underlying data as GDP (tax records, business surveys, census data) but filters and reattributes it to outdoor recreation categories.

State-level data covers all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 2012–2024. National-level data provides additional granularity by activity type.

The BEA's definition of outdoor recreation is broader than most people expect. It includes:

• Conventional outdoor activities: Hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, skiing, cycling, boating, climbing, kayaking, RVing, horseback riding, snowmobiling, and similar activities.
• Other outdoor recreation: Amusement and theme parks, outdoor festivals and concerts, field sports (golf, soccer, etc.), guided tours, game areas, and wildlife viewing.
• Supporting services: Travel and tourism, lodging, food and beverage, gear and apparel shopping, and transportation that supports outdoor recreation.
• Government expenditures: Federal, state, and local spending on outdoor recreation infrastructure: trails, parks, ranger programs, recreation facilities.

This means Disney World, Six Flags, and the Super Bowl are part of the "outdoor recreation economy" as measured by BEA. So is RV manufacturing, fishing tackle retail, ski lodge construction, gardening, and golf. Indoor activities are excluded even if recreational. Indoor rock climbing, indoor pools, and gyms don't count. The line is literally "in the open air."

Gross output is the total dollar value of everything the outdoor recreation sector produces. In 2024, that was roughly $1.26 trillion.

Value added is gross output minus the cost of inputs purchased from other industries. It represents the sector's direct contribution to GDP. In 2024, value added was $696.7 billion, about 55% of gross output.

Value added is the better measure for comparing outdoor recreation to other sectors of the economy, because it avoids double-counting. When a ski resort buys diesel fuel, that fuel is counted in the energy sector's output. Only the resort's markup and service value counts in outdoor recreation's value added.

Nominal values are reported in current dollars, the actual amounts in the year they occurred. Real values are adjusted for inflation using 2017 as the base year.

The difference matters. From 2017 to 2024, nominal outdoor recreation value added grew 54%. But adjusted for inflation, real growth was roughly 20%. The rest was price increases, not more economic activity. When you see a chart labeled "current dollars" or showing large post-2020 growth, keep this in mind.

Employment counts full-time and part-time jobs supported by outdoor recreation, including self-employed workers. It counts jobs, not people. Someone with two part-time outdoor recreation jobs appears twice.

Compensation includes wages, salaries, and employer-provided benefits (health insurance, retirement contributions). It does not include proprietor's income or investment returns.

Both metrics are derived from BEA's regional economic accounts and allocated to outdoor recreation based on industry classification codes.

State-level data reflects economic activity that occurs within each state, not where companies are headquartered. If a hotel chain is based in Virginia but operates a lodge in Montana, the lodge's economic contribution appears in Montana's data.

This means states with major destination tourism (Florida, California, Colorado) tend to capture more value than states where outdoor recreation companies are headquartered but operate elsewhere.

One notable exception: manufacturing. Indiana's outsized outdoor recreation GDP comes from RV factories physically located in the state. The economic activity of building RVs counts where the factory is, even though the RVs are used everywhere.

BEA organizes outdoor recreation into a hierarchy of approximately 50 activity categories at the national level. State-level data provides less granularity. Some activities available in national totals are grouped together at the state level.

The three top-level categories are:

• Core outdoor recreation: Split into "conventional" activities like hiking, fishing, and skiing, and "other" outdoor recreation like amusement parks, festivals, and field sports.
• Supporting services: Travel, lodging, food, shopping, transportation. The economic ecosystem around outdoor recreation. This category now accounts for over half of total value added and continues to grow. The outdoor recreation economy is, at its core, a travel and hospitality economy.
• Government: Federal, state, and local recreation spending.

• Definition breadth. Including amusement parks, RV manufacturing, and outdoor concerts in "outdoor recreation" makes the total look larger but dilutes the connection to nature-based recreation. When someone says "outdoor recreation is a $700B industry," understand that theme parks and RV factories are a big chunk of that number.
• Attribution is imperfect. Allocating a restaurant's revenue to "outdoor recreation" because it's near a trailhead involves assumptions. The BEA uses industry codes and statistical models, not direct surveys of why each customer showed up.
• Lag time. BEA data is typically released with a lag. The 2024 data was published in March 2026.
• No participation data. This account measures economic output, not participation. A state can grow its outdoor recreation GDP through price increases alone, without any additional people going outside.
• COVID distortion. 2020 and 2021 data shows dramatic swings driven by shutdowns and reopenings. Gear purchases spiked (people bought bikes and kayaks) while travel and lodging collapsed. The composition shifted significantly and hasn't fully normalized.
• Interstate spending leakage. A Colorado resident buying ski equipment online from a retailer in Utah generates economic value in Utah, not Colorado. State-level data reflects where production occurs, which may not match where recreation happens.

BEA data is presented as reported, converted from thousands to display-friendly formats. Rankings are computed from the raw values. Year-over-year growth rates, composition percentages, and state comparisons are all derived from the published figures without adjustment. Real (inflation-adjusted) figures use the BEA's own real value added series with 2017 as the base year.

The insight callouts on state pages are manually written observations based on additional research, reporting, and analysis, not BEA findings. They're meant to surface the stories behind the numbers: why Indiana's GDP share is so high (RV manufacturing), why Colorado is exposed to snowpack variability, or what a policy fight means for Minnesota's fishing economy. Sources are linked where available.

• BEA Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account: the primary data source for all economic figures on this site
• BEA ORSA Methodology Paper (2018): original methodology documentation
• Outdoor Recreation Jobs and Economic Impact Act of 2016: the law that mandated the satellite account