Choose Outdoors Org
- Connecting Americans to Public Land through Outdoor Recreation
Quick — which group of people spends more than most outdoor shoppers on gear?
Nope, it’s not the Anker family or the Mancusos or the Reese-Hamiltons. It’s Latinos. They dish out $592 per person, per year on outdoor apparel, footwear, electronics and gear, such as parkas, boots, backpacks and GPS devices, compared with the $465 the average outdoor consumer spends, according to OIA ConsumerVue research. “They are spending an average of 22 hours per week outside, which reflects the amount of time spent by many core outdoor enthusiasts,” says Lorna Caputo, OIA’s market insights manager. “[Latinos] are an important demographic to the recreation economy.”
And yet they’re vastly misunderstood by most people in the outdoor industry, according to a panel of outdoor change-agents who are highlighting the power and importance of having diverse voices at the table when advocating for recreation policy. A group of long-overlooked outdoorists—including Rue Mapp, founder of the award-winningOutdoor Afro blog and recently appointed commissioner to the California Department of Parks and Recreation and Mark Magaña, founding president and CEO of Green Latinos—are taking leadership roles in the fight to preserve America’s wild places and to ensure access to and for all Americans.
