Outdoor Recreation - The Future Of Outdoor Recreation

According to the middle-series projections of the U.S. Census Bureau, the total population of the United States will increase 49% between 2000 and 2050. Most of the growth, however, was expected to be among the older ages and minorities, neither of which have had historically high rates of participation in active sports. A rapidly increasing share of young adults would be black, Hispanic, or Asian. In general, minorities have had less discretionary income than whites, especially older whites.

Despite these inhibiting factors, outdoor recreation activity was projected to grow over the next half-century, according to J. M. Bowker, Donald B. K. English, and H. Ken Cordell in their 1999 study Projections of Outdoor Recreation Participation to 2050. The five fastest growing activities as measured by number of participants were projected to be cross-country skiing (up 95%), downhill skiing (up 93%), visiting historic places (up 76%), sightseeing (up 71%), and biking (up 70%). The five slowest growing activities were projected to be rafting (up 26%), backpacking (up 26%), off-road vehicle driving (up 16%), primitive camping (up 10%), and hunting (projected to decline 11%).