Contents
- Outdoor recreation spending statistics: U.S. value added and economic scale
- Outdoor recreation spending statistics by outdoor activity
- Outdoor recreation spending statistics for trips and travel
- Outdoor recreation spending statistics across states
- Outdoor recreation spending statistics by industry and jobs
- Sources
Outdoor recreation spending statistics: U.S. value added and economic scale
Outdoor recreation spending statistics are often read as a measure of what households pay for recreation. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) figures discussed here measure the economic activity associated with outdoor recreation through value added, employment, and compensation. Value added contributes to gross domestic product (GDP); it is not the same as direct household out-of-pocket spending. That distinction matters when interpreting the totals: the figures describe an economic account, not a tally of consumer receipts.
In 2024, U.S. outdoor recreation value added was $696,658 million in current dollars. The inflation-adjusted series was $540,131 million in chained 2017 dollars. BEA reported the current-dollar total as 2.4% of U.S. GDP. These are three different expressions of the same broad measure: a nominal dollar value, a real value stated in chained dollars, and a share of GDP. They should not be substituted for one another.
The real-value series provides context across years without treating nominal amounts as directly comparable. BEA recorded outdoor recreation value added of $482,993 million in chained 2017 dollars in 2019, followed by $364,294 million in 2020. The series then shows $451,314 million in 2021, $499,579 million in 2022, $525,814 million in 2023, and $540,131 million in 2024. The sequence documents a decline from 2019 to 2020 and higher reported values in each subsequent year shown. It does not, by itself, explain why the values changed.
| Year | Real outdoor recreation value added (millions of chained 2017 dollars) |
|---|---|
| 2019 | $482,993 |
| 2020 | $364,294 |
| 2021 | $451,314 |
| 2022 | $499,579 |
| 2023 | $525,814 |
| 2024 | $540,131 |
Sources: BEA 2024 release, National Table 1; National Table 3; BEA Outdoor Recreation account. The March 5, 2026 release presented new statistics for 2024 and updated figures for 2020–2023. The BEA page lists November 18, 2026 as the next release date, after the research date of November 12, 2026; thus, these figures are not presented as later or current-year measurements.
Outdoor recreation spending statistics by outdoor activity
BEA’s activity table divides the 2024 current-dollar total into categories. Conventional outdoor recreation accounted for $205,433 million in value added. Within the reported water-related activities, boating and fishing together contributed $38,379 million. That combined category is distinct from the table’s separate figures for fishing excluding boating, sailing, kayaking, canoeing, and other conventional water activities.
| BEA activity category | 2024 value added (millions of current dollars) |
|---|---|
| Conventional outdoor recreation | $205,433 |
| Boating and fishing | $38,379 |
| Fishing (excludes boating) | $8,746 |
| Sailing | $1,790 |
| Kayaking | $360 |
| Canoeing | $129 |
| Other conventional water activities | $4,973 |
Source: BEA 2024 release, National Table 2. These are value-added amounts in millions of current dollars for 2024, not measures of the total price paid by participants. The table lists boating and fishing as a combined category as well as a separate fishing category explicitly excluding boating, so those labels should be retained when comparing the rows.
The “other conventional water activities” category is especially relevant to windsurfing. BEA’s table footnote says it includes boardsailing and windsurfing alongside SCUBA diving, snorkeling, stand-up paddling, surfing, tubing, wakeboarding, water skiing, and whitewater rafting. The category’s $4,973 million is therefore a grouped value-added figure. The release does not report a separate windsurfing amount, so it cannot be read as windsurfing’s individual contribution.
The table also reports boating and fishing value added of $38,495 million in 2023, compared with $38,379 million in 2024, both in current dollars. This is a comparison of nominal values for those two years; it is not an inflation-adjusted comparison and does not establish what drove the change. The BEA page describes the account and its coverage, while the detailed release supplies the activity rows and definitions.
Outdoor recreation spending statistics for trips and travel
The BEA accounts include supporting activities that facilitate outdoor recreation, including trips and travel. In 2024, the broad “supporting outdoor recreation” category generated $358,641 million in value added in current dollars. Within that grouping, “trips and travel” represented $252,920 million. BEA defines this travel category as trip expenses for trips at least 50 miles from home.
Local trips are defined separately as trips less than 50 miles from home. Their related expenses generated $62,207 million in value added in 2024. The table’s local-trip definition includes food and beverages, lodging, shopping and souvenirs, and transportation. These categories organize the economic activity associated with trips; they do not imply that every trip includes each expense type.
| Travel-related category | 2024 value added (millions of current dollars) |
|---|---|
| Supporting outdoor recreation | $358,641 |
| Trips and travel (at least 50 miles from home) | $252,920 |
| Local trips and travel (less than 50 miles from home) | $62,207 |
| Transportation within trips and travel | $106,240 |
| Lodging within trips and travel | $59,851 |
| Food and beverages within trips and travel | $45,817 |
| Shopping and souvenirs within trips and travel | $41,011 |
| Government expenditures associated with outdoor recreation | $27,392 |
Source: BEA 2024 release, National Table 2 and footnotes 6–7. The transportation, lodging, food-and-beverage, and shopping rows are components shown under the longer-distance trips and travel grouping. Government expenditures are reported as a separate row in the same table. The row values are preserved in the table’s original unit, millions of current dollars.
The travel figures show why outdoor recreation’s economic footprint extends beyond activity-specific categories. They include travel-related services and expenses, while the account’s supporting category captures activity that enables recreation. Because value added is not the same as gross spending, the numbers should not be summed or described as a consumer spending bill without the source’s accounting definitions.
Outdoor recreation spending statistics across states
State figures offer two distinct ways to view scale: outdoor recreation value added as a share of state GDP, and value added in thousands of dollars. In 2024, outdoor recreation accounted for 6.1% of Hawaii’s state GDP and 1.0% of the District of Columbia’s GDP. These percentages are shares of each jurisdiction’s GDP, not dollar rankings.
For dollar totals, California recorded $87,868,369 thousand in outdoor recreation value added in 2024, while Florida recorded $65,260,485 thousand. Wyoming’s reported total was $2,292,862 thousand. The source reports these state values in thousands of dollars, so the unit is kept as published rather than silently converting or rounding the figures.
| State or jurisdiction | Measure | 2024 value |
|---|---|---|
| Hawaii | Value added as a share of state GDP | 6.1% |
| District of Columbia | Value added as a share of GDP | 1.0% |
| California | Total outdoor recreation value added (thousands of dollars) | $87,868,369 thousand |
| Florida | Total outdoor recreation value added (thousands of dollars) | $65,260,485 thousand |
| Wyoming | Total outdoor recreation value added (thousands of dollars) | $2,292,862 thousand |
Source: BEA 2024 release, State Table 1. The table combines separate measures in one display for readability; the percentage rows and dollar rows use different denominators and units and should not be compared as if they were a single ranking.
Selected activity values add another view of state variation. Florida’s boating and fishing value added was $4,708,624 thousand in 2024, compared with $3,317,988 thousand in California. These figures refer only to the boating and fishing column in BEA’s selected-activities table; they are not each state’s entire outdoor recreation value added.
Employment provides a further state measure. Washington’s outdoor recreation industries employed 129,088 people in 2024. California employed 589,354, and Florida employed 508,656, according to the total-industry employment column. These are employment counts, not value-added totals. The state tables provide selected indicators rather than a full explanation of why state economies differ.
Sources: BEA 2024 release, State Table 2 for boating and fishing; State Table 4 for employment.
Outdoor recreation spending statistics by industry and jobs
National employment and compensation figures show the scale of outdoor recreation activity across industries. BEA counted 5,244,804 outdoor recreation jobs in the United States in 2024. Outdoor recreation represented 3.2% of U.S. wage and salary employment. Total outdoor recreation compensation was $324,291,599 thousand, equal to 2.2% of total U.S. compensation. Employment share and compensation share are separate indicators and describe different measures.
The industry breakdown shows that outdoor recreation value added spans retail, manufacturing, lodging and food services, recreation services, and government. In 2024, retail trade contributed $169,058,533 thousand in value added; manufacturing contributed $91,342,337 thousand; accommodation and food services contributed $97,727,345 thousand; arts, entertainment, and recreation contributed $76,707,125 thousand; and government contributed $32,052,788 thousand. Each amount is reported in thousands of dollars.
| Industry | Outdoor recreation value added, 2024 (thousands of dollars) | Outdoor recreation jobs, 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Retail trade | $169,058,533 thousand | 1,758,058 |
| Manufacturing | $91,342,337 thousand | — |
| Accommodation and food services | $97,727,345 thousand | 1,096,381 |
| Arts, entertainment, and recreation | $76,707,125 thousand | 1,015,366 |
| Government | $32,052,788 thousand | — |
Sources: BEA 2024 release, State Table 3 for value added; State Table 4 for employment. Job counts are included only for industries with selected employment observations here; a dash means no job figure is shown in this table, not that employment is zero.
Retail trade leads the selected industry value-added rows, while accommodation and food services has the largest of the three employment counts shown. Those comparisons apply to the listed industries and measures; they do not imply that one industry accounts for all outdoor recreation retail purchases or all jobs connected to a particular activity. Taken together, the BEA statistics describe an economic system that includes recreation, travel, goods, services, and public activity, using defined value-added and employment measures rather than a single household spending total.