Pennsylvania reveals roadmap to grow $17 billion outdoor economy

Despite having no national parks, Pennsylvania brags nearly 200,000 acres of parks, 2.2 million acres of state forests and 86,000 miles of waterways. Those vast and varied natural beauty and recreational opportunities contributed a whopping $17 billion to the state’s gross domestic product in 2022. And Pennsylvania has the eighth-largest outdoor recreation economy, which supports 164,000 jobs.

It’s part of the reason that in 2021, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources hired the state’s first director of outdoor recreation, Nathan Reigner. The new Pennsylvania office was the 20th of its kind in the United States, part of a trend toward realizing the economic, social and environmental benefits of outdoor recreation.

The DCNR recently released “Growing Outdoor Recreation for Pennsylvania Conclusions Report and Roadmap for the Future,” a comprehensive list of strategies to grow the state’s outdoor industry, develop its economic development capacity, and improve inclusivity and equity through the outdoors. 

“We’re witnessing a trend where cultural and outdoor recreational opportunities are increasingly merging,” says Sally Guzik, vice president for Fourth Economy, a Pittsburgh-based community and economic development firm. Fourth Economy hosted a webinar with state outdoor recreation leaders in 2022. 

“This approach not only opens new funding and access avenues but also plays a critical role in attracting talent,” she says. “In Pennsylvania, the outdoor economy contributes $29.1 billion in consumer spending annually. Nationally, the impact is staggering, with outdoor recreation generating $887 billion in consumer spending, alongside $65.3 billion in federal tax revenue and $59.2 billion in state and local tax revenue. These figures underscore the outdoor and cultural sectors’ vital role in our economy.”

The report was created through the Recreation Engagement Coalition — a group of 51 outdoor recreation leaders — and centered on five major themes: economic and recreation development, conservation and stewardship, health and wellness, capacity building and professionalism, and diversity, equity and inclusion. 

“I was told by many of them that this is the first time a group like this has been brought together,” Reigner says. “When we spent time together, the connections just proliferated.”

“We think about the outdoor economy as the folks who are running outfitting businesses or the nonprofits building trails,” says Brett Hollern of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, which participated in the coalition. “But there are all these smaller pockets of folks who have a stake in it.”

Members of the coalition included travel destination agencies, nonprofits, state agencies and businesses.

Hollern, vice president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, notes that economic agencies are starting to value outdoor recreation as a must-have to attract businesses.

Reigner says that priority 1A of the plan is to help the outdoor industry organize. “The priority is to pull the industry together, to help it recognize itself as a cohesive industry and advocate itself and set up a public-private partnership between Pennsylvania’s Office of Outdoor Recreation and the industry.”

Reigner’s office and partners will also work to ensure Pennsylvania receives as much funding as possible from the federal government. 

“We need to connect the dots within state government to deliver real solutions for outdoor businesses,” he adds.

The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, the national association of outdoor recreation associations, released a rural development toolkit that outlines policies and best practices to leverage outdoor recreation to enhance rural economic development. 

The PA Wilds region consists of 13 counties, one of the largest sections of green space between New York City and Chicago. According to the PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship, the PA Wilds brought 8 million visitors in 2022.

“Rural entrepreneurs can tie into the tourism that outdoor recreation brings,” Ta Enos, founder and CEO, said in a blog post. “We work with many creative makers and artisans who create inspired products for visitor markets.”

“They’ve seen lift attendants and ticket takers and mountain operators. And those are the jobs that we think about in the outdoor industry. But the young skiers also saw that there are graphic designers, digital marketers, production engineers and woodworkers. They’re all working indoors, but they’re working for the outdoors.”

Reigner notes that the Pittsburgh-based Outdoor Inclusion Coalition hosts a learn-to-ski program for youth. Students in the program visited Gilson Snow, a manufacturer of skis and snowboards.

A large part of Reigner’s job is traveling the state. 

“Our recreation is just as plentiful in cities as in rural areas,” Reigner says. “Pittsburgh has amazing assets and programming at play.”

Reigner highlights the Great Allegheny Passage which begins at Point State Park. 

“Urban areas seek to compete for highly mobile tech jobs and businesses. The job may attract them, but outdoor recreation will keep those people there.”