Outdoor Recreation

Outdoor recreation trips are defined as travel that occurs at least 50 miles away from home. The definitions, framework, and estimation methods follow the guidelines developed by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for travel and tourism accounts. Outdoor recreation trip and travel expenses specifically include food and beverages (groceries and restaurants), lodging, transportation, and souvenirs and shopping.

Gross domestic product (or value added) by industry and gross output by industry are both published as part of BEA's industry accounts, and both sets of statistics provide important insights into an industry’s contribution to the overall economy.

The advantage of constructing an economic account on outdoor recreation within the framework used for BEA’s GDP accounts is that the overall outdoor recreation economy can be compared to GDP for the nation and in each state. This includes as a percentage of GDP as well as whether GDP for the outdoor recreation economy is growing faster or slower than the overall U.S. economy.

BEA's measure of the outdoor recreation economy is prepared within an economic accounting framework that is fully consistent with how the gross domestic product (GDP) accounts for the nation are constructed. Outdoor recreation estimates include measures of gross output, value added, compensation of employees, and employment by industry.

Economic activity associated with outdoor recreation is embedded in BEA’s core statistics, including data on production, GDP, employment, and compensation. For the outdoor recreation economic statistics, these embedded data elements are pulled from the core accounts and combined in a unified framework that separately highlights activity associated with the outdoor recreation economy.