The outdoor recreation industry is meeting again in Salt Lake City this week. The Outdoor Retailers’ (OR) Summer Market is partly a gathering of retail trend spotters, partly a brainstorming for conservation activists. But it’s also a business convention, with more than twenty-eight thousand people pumping over twenty-million-dollars into the local economy over a few days.
Brad Peterson, director of the Utah Office of Outdoor Recreation, says the impacts have indirect benefits, too.
“In the last year alone, we’ve had over $2.5 billion in new revenue of outdoor products businesses move to the state," says Peterson, "and a lot of that is oftentimes because they’ve come here through the OR show first.”
A few years ago, leaders of the outdoor industry began complaining about pro-development politics in Utah, and that prompted the creation of Peterson’s post. Now Colorado has similar office and a half-dozen other states are thinking about adding one of their own. The purpose is to keep lines of communication open in an industry worth more than $646 billion nationally.
Owner of Western Spirit Cycling in Moab and an outfitter with permits to use public lands, Ashley Korenblat says outdoor recreation and smart land management have to go hand in hand.
“Outdoor activities are really part of the business fabric of the state of Utah,” she says.
The Outdoor Retailers convention is underway at the Salt Palace Convention Center downtown through Saturday.
