The latest episode of the Sports for Social Impact podcast explored the benefits and drawbacks of tourism that is driven by sports. When you look up on tripadvisor or read about a city or country on a travel blog, many of the first recommendations of things to do are outdoor activities. It could be walking or biking tours, fly fishing, tubing or rafting on the river, mountain biking, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, camping. These are often described as experiences.
For some places more than others, the outdoor recreation sector is much more important to the local economy and tourism. Many mountain towns in Canada like Banff, Canmore, or Revelstoke are some examples where sport is vital.
Because of sport’s importance to the local area, we spoke with Meghan Tabor, the Executive Director of Tourism Revelstoke. Meghan is an experienced leader in marketing and destination management, with over a decade dedicated to advancing tourism and community development. As the Executive Director at Tourism Revelstoke, she leads strategic initiatives and builds impactful partnerships to strengthen tourism’s role in community enhancement. Tourism Revelstoke is a non-profit organization contracted by the City of Revelstoke to execute the 5-year Strategic Business Plan for the use of Municipal and Regional District Tax (MRDT).
Since recording this episode I have been thinking a lot about the importance of sport to Canada’s economy and how it can help us with so much economic uncertainty with the threat of tariffs from the U.S. looming large on the economy and the national psyche. The conversation is focused on exports and trade oriented industries such as oil and gas, steel and aluminum, automobiles, etc. Needless to say, the tariffs would be absolutely devastating to Canada’s economy and also have ramifications for US businesses and consumers as well.
There has been a large push for buying Canadian goods and services in the wake of these tariff threats. Buying Canadian made toilet paper, ketchup, canned beans, and more.
I think what is missing from these conversations is the importance of the outdoor recreation sector as an economic driver in Canada and how we need to support it in these times as well. POW Canada, who was on the podcast in 2022, released a report titled Outdoor Recreation Economic Report at the end of 2024. It details the importance of this sector to Canada. This report was written in the context of climate change and the need to protect our natural resources, but I think that it is just as relevant in the face of protecting Canada’s economic future.
Overall, the economic contributions of the outdoor recreation sector contributes more to the economy than forestry, agriculture or fisheries, and nearly as much as the oil and gas sector.
When considering the number of full time equivalent (FTEs) jobs across the Canadian economy, outdoor recreation creates over 1 million jobs. Well above other industries such as the oil & gas, agriculture or forestry industries.
As the threats and impacts to other industries grow through tariffs, much of the conversation has focused on finding new markets for those goods. Where has the conversation been on building new opportunities for established sectors within Canada?
Given the importance of the outdoor recreation sector in Canada, how can we help establish this sector as an even more important contributor to the nation? It would be interesting to see an analysis on the ownership of different sectors and see how much of the profits from the outdoor recreation sector stay within Canada versus goes outside our borders. From my own experience interacting with the outdoor recreation sector in Canada, it appears that many of these businesses offering these experiences and opportunities appear to be small businesses, the profits from spending in this sector stay more local than some of the other industries that operate in Canada where large multi-national corporations take profits elsewhere. I think this can be seen through the number of FTEs in the outdoor recreation sector compared to other industries. For example, the oil and gas sector contributes nearly $40 Billion more, but the outdoor recreation sector creates two times the number of jobs than the oil and gas sector (558,000 versus 1.1 million jobs).
How can we make strategic investments in different sectors that support local economies and keep more of the profits in those communities? This is an important question that we should be asking ourselves right now.
コメント