Outdoor Travel and Marketing, Where Things Actually Stand Right Now
Every year around this time, the president gets in front of a room and gives a State of the Union. I’ve never had a joint session of Congress to talk to, but I’ve got something better. I’ve got you. So consider this our version. The State of the Industry, outfitter edition.
I spent years running a rafting company before I ever touched a keyboard for a living. I know what it feels like to be so deep in the season, the bookings, the guides, the gear, that you don’t have time to look up and ask what’s actually happening in the industry around you. So I did the looking up for you. I pulled the latest data on outdoor travel and outdoor marketing, and I want to walk you through what it means for your business. Not theory. Not hype. Just where things stand.
The State of Outdoor Travel: More People, Less Often
Let’s start with the good news, because there is real good news here.
More Americans are getting outside than ever before. The Outdoor Industry Association’s newest participation report puts the number at 183.2 million people in 2025, which is 59 percent of the population age six and up. That’s the highest number ever recorded. If you needed proof that the outdoors still matters to people, that’s it.
But here’s the part that doesn’t make the headlines. That growth is coming from more people trying outdoor recreation for the first time, not from existing outdoor lovers doing more of it. Frequency is actually softening. People are dipping a toe in more often than they’re diving in deep and often.
Two groups are driving a lot of that growth in a way that matters for your marketing. Adults 65 and older added 800,000 new participants in a single year, and that group has grown by more than 12 million since 2016. Hispanic participation rose 6.5 percent. Women hit a record participation rate. This isn’t the same outdoor customer base it was a decade ago.
What this means for you: the pool of potential guests is bigger than it’s ever been, but a lot of that pool is new to this. They don’t know your world the way a lifelong angler or hunter does. They need to be walked through it, not just marketed to. If your content assumes deep outdoor knowledge, you might be talking past the very people driving the growth.
The State of the Search: The Guest Is Asking AI Before They Ask You
This is the part of the State of the Industry address where I lean forward a little, because this is the shift that’s actually rewriting the rules while most of the industry isn’t looking.
Travel is the single most AI-influenced category in search right now. When people ask ChatGPT travel questions, it includes a link back to a website in nearly a quarter of those answers, a rate more than double the next closest category. That’s not a small trend. That’s AI treating travel questions differently than almost anything else it gets asked.
And this is early. Right now, roughly one in three trip planning sessions starts with an AI tool. But only a small slice of travelers, around 17 percent, have actually used AI to book an activity so far. That gap between researching with AI and booking with AI is wide open today, and it’s closing. The window to be the business AI is already recommending, before your competitors figure this out, is now.
Here’s what matters most for an outfitter or guide service. These AI tools aren’t reading your beautifully written About page and falling in love with your story. They’re pulling structured, specific information. What you do, what it costs, how long it takes, whether you have availability, what real guests say about you. If that information is clear and easy to find, you get mentioned. If it’s buried in a paragraph or missing entirely, you don’t.
This is exactly why I’ve been so focused on Answer Engine Optimization with our clients. It’s not a buzzword. It’s the difference between being the answer AI gives a first-time river trip guest, or being invisible to them entirely. If you want the full breakdown of how it’s different from traditional SEO, I wrote about that here.
The State of Booking: Direct Is Winning, and SEO Is the Reason
Now let’s talk about where the actual bookings are coming from, because this data might be the most important thing in this whole address.
One of the largest tours and activities industry reports released this year found that SEO has now passed word of mouth as the number one driver of bookings, for the first time ever. Seventy-one percent of operators point to SEO as a top booking driver, compared to fifty percent for word of mouth. Word of mouth built this industry. It’s still valuable. But it’s no longer sitting alone at the top.
That same report found sixty-nine percent of bookings across the industry now happen directly, not through a third party platform, and over forty percent of operators have cut ties with those platforms altogether. Operators are taking back control of the guest relationship, and organic search is the engine making that possible.
I want to be honest about something here, because I don’t like overselling this stuff. Being on those third party booking platforms isn’t wrong. They still bring in guests who wouldn’t have found you otherwise. But the businesses pulling ahead right now are the ones that treat those platforms as one entry point among several, not the whole strategy. When your own site and your own search visibility can stand on their own, you keep more of what you earn, and you own the relationship with that guest for next season too.
More than half of operators surveyed said they’re already using AI somewhere in their business, and most of those said it’s genuinely saving them time. That tells me this isn’t a future conversation anymore. It’s a current one.
The State of Trust: The Review Is the New Handshake
Here’s a piece of this that connects directly back to something you already know how to do well: build trust in person, one guest at a time.
Nearly nine out of ten people read reviews before choosing a local business. Listings with forty or more reviews and a strong rating show up in local search far more often than listings with a handful of reviews, by a wide margin. And research on local search has found that going from a good rating to a great one, adding even one full star, can lift revenue for a local business by five to nine percent.
That old guide instinct of taking care of people so well they can’t help but tell someone else? That instinct still works. It’s just that now, “telling someone else” often means leaving a Google review instead of mentioning you at the dinner table. The muscle is the same. The outlet has changed.
What the State of the Industry Actually Means for You
If I had to boil all of this down to one point, it’s this. The fundamentals of this business haven’t changed. Take care of people, deliver a real experience, earn their trust. What’s changed is where that trust gets discovered and confirmed before a guest ever calls you.
More people are looking for what you offer than ever before, and a growing share of them are new to it and need guidance, not jargon. They’re starting that search with AI tools that reward businesses with clear, specific, well-structured information. And when they’re ready to book, they’re increasingly choosing to book directly with businesses that show up well in search and carry real reviews, rather than routing through a third party.
None of this happens overnight, and I’d be lying to you if I said otherwise. This is a system building on itself over months, not a switch you flip. But the outfitters who start building that visibility now, while a lot of the industry is still catching up, are the ones who’ll be sitting comfortably a year from now instead of scrambling.
That’s the State of the Industry as I see it. Outdoor recreation is growing. AI is reshaping how people search for it. And the businesses willing to show up clearly, honestly, and consistently are the ones set up to benefit from all of it.
If any of this got you thinking about where your business stands in the middle of it, I’d love to talk it through with you. No pitch, just a conversation. You can always find me at outfittermarketingpros.com.
And if you want a place to keep learning alongside other outdoor business owners working through this same shift, The Trailhead is free to join. No catch, just a good group of people figuring this out together.
Here’s to a good season ahead.
Paul
Sources
- 2026 Outdoor Participation Trends Report – Outdoor Industry Association
- Outdoor Recreation Economy Economic Data – Headwaters Economics
- ChatGPT Links Out Most on Travel Queries – Search Engine Journal
- AI Trip Planning in 2026: Win the Booking – Boosting Bookings
- Online Travel Booking Statistics 2026 – Tripplo
- Global Trends in Tours & Activities: The 2026 Report – Rezdy
- Local SEO Statistics 2026 – BGR Review
- Google Business Profile Statistics – WiserNotify
