The Outdoor Industry Census Reality Check

The outdoor industry runs on passion, but passion is not a plan. We’re recorded live with our professional outdoor community, and we use this week’s Connect and Share to put real numbers behind what many providers have been feeling on the ground across New South Wales and the ACT.

We start with key sector updates and community notices, then move into the heart of the session: three years of Outdoor Industry Census results. We break down how the overall industry mix stays steady across outdoor education, adventure tourism, outdoor recreation, nature therapy, and industry supporters, while outcomes inside those segments tell very different stories. Outdoor education shows a clear slide in participation and confidence, adventure tourism trends upward with stronger outlook signals, and outdoor recreation sits in a “watch and act” middle ground. We also explain why nature therapy needs a deeper data dive as wellness tourism and mental health needs grow.

The workforce picture is the wake-up call. We talk churn rising from 13% to 19.5%, the growing reliance on casual staffing, and why worker shortfall becomes the top capacity constraint for the first time in the census. We quantify the scale of unmet demand, point to the biggest skills gaps (outdoor leadership qualifications and wilderness or remote first aid), and share practical benchmarks like typical revenue per participant and the wide spread of annual turnover across organizations.

We close by connecting the data to what is likely driving these shifts, including cost-of-living pressure, changing community connection to outdoor education, and the difficulty of replacing experienced staff and volunteers, then we outline how we’re using this evidence for advocacy leading into future policy windows. Subscribe for weekly industry insights, share this with someone who hires or trains outdoor staff, and leave a review with the one change you think would most strengthen the outdoor sector.

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose Of Forum

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Outdoors New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory, weekly Outdoor Industry Connect and Share Forum, where ideas thrive, collaborations spark, and our industry comes together to grow. Let's connect, share, and make an impact. This episode is recorded live with our professional outdoor friends and provided post-event as a resource for the outdoor industry.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I just realized I've got the date wrong on that first slide. It is the 14th of August today. Not the 13th, the 14th, and uh it's episode 26 of

Acknowledgement And Community Tribute

SPEAKER_01 0:45

season four. I was obviously wishing Friday the 13th or something, but anyway, may I please acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands in which we all meet today and pay my respects to elders past, present, and those that we are working with to connect better to our country, to our beliefs, and everything that sustains our environment for the future. I'll start on a sad note for those that uh may have known Alice Livingston. Uh, she actually owned Cape Byron kayaks. Um, unfortunately, we've lost her, and uh, we absolutely our hearts go out to her family, friends, and everyone who knew her. Um, and as we uh acknowledge what she contributed to the outdoor industry, there is a uh reflection and a celebration of life uh on Friday, the 21st of August, where everyone will be paddling out into Byron as in Alice's honour. So if you wanted to join and then attend the uh the celebration of life from 5 p.m. at Byron Bay Bolo, um please RSVP through to Cape Byron kayaks and uh and hopefully we can all celebrate what an amazing achievement she left as a legacy in Byron Bay.

Industry Events And Operator Wins

SPEAKER_01 2:06

This week uh I attended the National Protected Areas Forum where all of the states and territories uh come together to talk about um sharing of content and ideas on how they protect our important assets. I was able to address this forum with the news on the AAAS and the importance of that standard and its associated good practice guides uh as we go in through the review process before the launch of the next version, which will be in September. So uh great to address that forum and uh thank you to the team from Ecotourism who facilitate that forum and to all the states and territory uh national parks and areas uh that enabled me to participate. This week was also the Oz Active Summit down in Canberra. Now you might remember I might I went there last year. This year, too many meetings prevented me from going, but I was able to send a few delegates in our place. You can see on screen there Michael Wilkins on the left, who is uh one of my co-directors from Western Sydney Moving. So certainly speaking for that organization down there. Uh Dan Waters in the middle, who you might remember from Human Ability, uh, who also flew the flag for the Outdoor Council of Australia, and Stan Wall, who was on the board of Human Ability, also from the life-saving industry, and was able to certainly sing um the song around active lifestyles and participation, of which we want to get the message loud and clear across to our parliamentarians that we need to spend more in preventative health. Also, this week was the top tour guide awards. So amazing achievement by our adventure tourism operators, as you can see there. We had three take out some of the gongs. Uh, we had Elena from Showtime Kayaking, who you might know in Newcastle. Amazing result, Elena, with a highly commended achievement. Uh, Rebecca from Shell Harbor Stand-Up Paddle Board got the silver, and the beautiful Laura from Sydney by Kayak took out the gold uh by uh all the top tour guides of New South Wales. She'll now represent New South Wales at the Australian Top Tour Guide Awards uh later this year. And you can see there the amazing Kelly on the top right hand screen. She is one of our pinnacle leader participants at the moment with some of our colleagues. So thank you to New South Wales Tourism Association for putting on the top tour guide awards, and we hope to see a lot more of you in the awards next year. Now, I also was able to attend the global community of practice, uh, which was another great opportunity to talk around the world on what we're doing to uh get people more active, outdoors, and uh and connecting. Um, so uh Lindsay Reese from the AIS, the Australian Institute of Sport, was representing uh their sport department. I was representing the Outdoor Council of Australia and Outdoors New South Wales, and we have people from New Zealand, from England, from Scotland, all around the table talking about influence and advocacy. So another great opportunity to collaborate and get more results for everyone.

Duke Of Ed Session And VET Review

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Now, this is an important announcement for anyone doing the Duke of Ed program. If you're facilitating uh journeys or involved in the program, we have Karen Witt from the Duke of Ed team holding a special follow-up session from our masterclass with our members. So if you're involved in this, I urge you to register. It was in your last newsletter from Outdoors New South Wales ACT. I'll also be putting that in this week's newsletter as well, so watch out for that. But it is on the 21st of August from 11am till 12 p.m. So look forward to seeing you there. Now you might remember that the VET uh the certificate 3, 4 diploma in outdoor leadership are all under review. We did get a bit of an extension to have our say on this. Uh, it is now due on the 16th of August. So if you have an opportunity to have a look at that course and uh the amendments that have been made in after the recent consultation, we urge you to do that because we want to make sure that this is going to be the best qualification for our needs, for our industry's needs to get more people into the sector and uh get the best result we can.

Mountain Bike Governance And Key Surveys

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Now, mountain biking. We have our next pulse survey out. So you might remember in 2024 we had the mountain bike symposium. Uh, that followed up with a mountain bike manifesto, and we put out a survey to gauge people's interest and what they their involvement in mountain biking was as well as their expenditure, which helped us evaluate a lot of the economic return of mountain biking. So, this new survey is literally the same questions from the 24 survey, and we have some students from Macquarie University doing an analysis on what has changed since 2024. You may know that uh there is a bit of a gap in uh looking at the governance and opportunities around mountain biking, as Oz Cycling, being our major peak body in the cycling industry, is very focused and so forth in events and elite uh sport activity, but our recreation arm is not really represented. So, we want to make sure that we are trying to look at where the gaps are, where the needs are, and uh our mountain bike committee is looking at that at the moment. So the results of this survey are incredibly important to help path where the committee goes with the needs for our mountain biking areas. The NACCOR survey is out at the moment as well. Now, this is going to help develop uh new training and events and resources for the outdoor industry for the next three years. Pardon me. NACCOR is the National Centre of Risk and Readiness. So they're looking at all the things where severe weather, uh, climate change affect the outdoor industry. So if you have some thoughts around what you need from an agency like that, uh certainly fill out this survey and the results will be shared at the National Outdoor Education Conference in September. So hopefully, we can help path the way to what we need from that organization. The Bureau of Meteorology also has a survey out, and this one's a little bit more in-depth. It does take a bit more time, but it does focus on severe weather and what we need as the industry when it comes to forecasting. So they're looking at developing a new hazard forecasting product, and this survey will help streamline what that looks like and how that appears. So, uh, another survey for you. We're going to be surveyed out, by the way, with this week's news. There is a lot going on.

Training Courses And Major Dates Ahead

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Okay, the courses that are coming up. Now they are filling, but I thought I'd just give you one last chance to jump in and see if you have any staff or any contacts that want to be part of the Facilitate with Intent course, which is on the 3rd and 4th of September. Now, this course is around uh keeping attention of your group, working with your group, facilitating in the best way possible for the outcomes that you're striving for. The 21st and 22nd of September is a lead within tent course. Now, this is a two-day intense course around empowering the leadership qualities in our new leaders or people that are wanting to become or go into leadership roles. So, a great opportunity for those that are coming through the ranks or want to come through the ranks to learn a little bit more about true leadership and what that means in your organization. The World Triference is in October. Now, this is coming to Australia for the first time in a in a long, long time, and it's going to be held in Perth. Now, if you are wanting to come along to this, it's on the 20th of October, I think it's the 20th and 21st. Uh, we've been offered a special discount. So thank you to the World Trials Network Network for offering that to us. So if you're wanting to attend, you can go in, uh login, and certainly buy your ticket as you would ordinarily, but use the promo code ONSWACT, and that will give you a 10% discount uh with the working trials sorry, the um World Trials Network, and you'll be able to attend with a little bit of a discount. So all the things that are coming up, yes, the 16th of August vet feedback closes. So make sure you get in your feedback before then. We have another Careers Expo on the 4th of September where we're partnering with Five Star Training on getting more people into the outdoor industry. Dynamic Motivation will be celebrating their 15th birthday celebrations on the 13th of September. So we encourage all of you around the Canberra region to come along to that. I certainly will be there myself. Uh, the two courses that we mentioned are in September: the Facilitate with Intent and the Lead with Intent. The National Outdoor Education Conference starts on the 28th of September, World Trials on the 20th of October. There's also the Australian Regional Tourism Convention in WA actually, so not far from where the World Trials Conference is going to be on the 22nd and 24th of October. And C. Otter is back. Our winner of the adventure event of the year at our outdoor industry awards is being held in Bateman's Bay and Mogo on the 24th and 26th of October. Haven't got into November yet. I think I'll just let you consume those few things before we jump into what's left for the rest of the year. Can't believe we're nearly at the end of August already. So next week at our Connect and Share, we will have John Harris attend. Now, John is an adventure photographer. So he's going to talk about all the things that we need to look at when getting our publicity right, our images right, to get the most from what we want to tell potential visitors, potential people that we need to get them outdoors. So we look forward to having John next week.

Outdoor Census Overview And Industry Mix

SPEAKER_01 13:00

But this week I'm going to be taking you through the outdoor census. So for those that were at the masterclass, you would have already seen a little bit of a taster of what the outdoor industry census has told us. But today I'm going to take you all through the three years that we've been doing the census and what has actually changed. So as you all know, data is incredibly important when it comes to advocacy, comes to what we do here at Outdoors New South Wales in supporting you and guiding some professional development as well as resources for your organisations. So this data for me has been not only incredibly useful for my knowledge, but has already proved its worth in getting our industry known in things like the skill shortage list. So let's take you through where we've landed after three years. So we've got an estimated 1,650 organisations that are somewhat connected to the outdoor industry in New South Wales and the ACT. You can imagine obviously that's a lot of the schools, it's a lot of providers, it's a lot of camps, it's people like retailers and wholesalers. But there is a very um small percentage of large organizations. So uh the data analysis certainly has looked at all the factors of diversity and large to small and looked at some medians versus um real data so that we don't get that skew and uh and we look at a like-for-like comparison. So let's take you through that. The first thing to note is that as an industry mix, we have not changed. I think that's probably a positive thing, and the fact that uh we're not seeing uh any sort of uh demise of any particular area of our industry mix, but we cover outdoor education, we cover adventure tourism, outdoor recreation, nature therapy, and then we have our supporters like our retail suppliers and other. So you can see there from year to year, we've had just a minimum shift from year to year of three points. So that's hardly anything. So you can see there the different depth and breadth of what we have. Obviously, our outdoor education sector has maintained the largest component, um, closely followed, and it's a bit of a toss as to who's going to take the lead each year. But adventure tourism outdoor recreation are very similar. And of course, our nature therapy is a smaller end of our market, but as we have said for the last couple of years now, it has got a great potential of uh growth as we look at some of the challenges that we have with our mental health areas.

Sector Trends Outdoor Ed Vs Tourism

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Now, let's look at the most negative first, and unfortunately, this is our outdoor education area. So you can see that graph in front of you that is telling the tale very strongly that our participant numbers have declined. Now, there is a lot of reasons behind this, which we will look at at the end of this presentation, but this is the data, and what you've been telling me that we're seeing a slide of our number of participants. We're also seeing a slide of our business outlook, a very concerning factor from you as that positive aspect of growth is just not there. So, you know, when people are looking at a net promoter score and promoting the industry they're in, that is also on the sliding scale. So we've got a bit of a negative approach at the moment to our outdoor education sector. Let's look at the reverse adventure tourism. This one is on the increase. So, for all those in the tourism industry where you're getting people from outside your area in adult groups or uh family groups or even school groups, if they're looking at a tourism experience, this is quite a shift. We're seeing a growth in adventure tourism, we're seeing a growth in your outlook and also your positive approach to the sector and uh what you hope for the future of outdoor adventure tourism. Outdoor recreation for me is a bit of a watch and act. Well, um, we're sort of stagnating a little bit. Um, I think our MPS has sort of declined a little bit, but still in the positive area. Um, this is for me a watch and act. So um I'll keep my pulse on this one as we go through into next year's census to see where we end up. But nature therapy is a small segment, and I think one takeaway that we want to do with nature therapy is to do a little bit more deep dive into this because we have only a few organizations that have responded to the census from this area, does not give a good indication of where this sits right now. So we will be doing more in next year's census on that one. So there's the overview for you to give you a bit of an idea, and um NPS is a really good gauge at where people are feeling and looking forward into uh the years ahead. So you can see that adventure tourism is certainly the most positive, followed by our outdoor industry as a whole, and then of course, outdoor education is still falling. So there's definitely two stories here. As I say, adventure tourism is up, outdoor recreation is down, but steady. But outdoor ed is uh certainly a concern going forward. So when we look at uh the actual participants, you can see here that this is why our outdoor ed providers have told us the story. So we're down on average from the first year around 72%. Now, the problem with that is that we did have some large providers tell us their story in 24, but they did not tell us the story in 26. So that's why we take the median and make sure that uh we skew it accordingly. So Adventure Tourism Medium is certainly a positive story to be told. Now let's look at the head

Workforce Churn And Unfilled Roles

SPEAKER_01 19:26

count. On average, every organization that we have has a median head count of around about 13, and that was identical in all three years. So again, showing that we're not growing, we're not declining. Um, we're only seeing that number of participant to participants in that decline area. So a typical staffing of an organization is two full-time, two part-time, and five to eight casuals. But here is the tale that we need to tell when it comes to our workforce, that our churn is rising. So we've gone from a 13% turnover to a 19.5% turnover. Now, please keep in mind that this only also includes our volunteer sector. So when we're talking about workforce, that includes our volunteers as well. So casuals we know are leaving for probably full-time contract work or other work, seasonal work, uh, and progressing out-of-field roles, but we're seeing a large degree of burnout from our volunteers to our staff, and we're not able to replace that. So, for the first time in the three years, our organizations have actually cited that worker shortfall is the highest capacity constraint that they have. So it was second last year against the rising costs of doing business. This year, it was the first uh issue that they raised. The casual share of paid staffing is also rising. So you can see in this graph here over the three years that uh whilst we have increased our full-time permanent uh staff, you're seeing still an increase in your casuals, which certainly is a challenge when you're fighting for uh the low staffing numbers and uh and battling everyday rostering with casual crew. So certainly that 67% share across the median organization is a challenge that we're faced with. It feeds the turnover and also the churn if we can't replace them. So the four segments are really four different stories, but uh, I think we've covered them well to give you a good understanding of what's actually happening in each of those four areas. But when we actually look at how many staff we actually do need, this is a staggering figure. So across our organizations, we would probably need concern. Conservatively around 7,000 positions in the outdoor industry. So that's volunteers and paid staff to look at the capacity demand. So the biggest gap that we have from what you've told us in our census is that we do not have enough qualified people in cert for an outdoor leadership or qualified with wilderness or remote first aid. So certain demand on our training providers, but also we have a challenge in getting people interested in our jobs here in the outdoor industry. So we've got possibly, according to the median results, a 4.7 uh positions unfilled per organization at this point in time. So a challenging situation nonetheless.

Pricing And Turnover Benchmarks

SPEAKER_01 22:51

So now let's look at RevPAR. We only asked this in the 26 survey, but this gives you a good idea. And sorry, RevPAR is the average per participant, is the easiest way to describe that. And if you look at uh the median versus the mean, of course, with some of those uh larger organizations, uh, there is a larger price point in some of those longer experiences or longer day experiences. So you can have a look at the median RevPAR versus the mean there on screen. Uh typically an outdoor experience earns an operator roughly between $70 and $100 per participant. But average the average on adventure tourism is commanding a bit more of a higher price per head revenue, while, as you'd expect, the outdoor recreation the lowest, as that tends to be driven by clubs, not-for-profits, and volunteer-led organizations. So the organizational turnover, we saw a third of all of the organizations actually were under $50,000 a year. 25% were over 1 million. The highest sector, of course, being the outdoor education sector, was turning over between 1 million and 2 million a year, while again our outdoor recreation was under between $1,000 and $200,000 a year. But the median of all organizations in the outdoor sector were looking between $250,000 and $500,000 per annum. So what is

What Is Driving The Shifts

SPEAKER_01 24:30

actually happening? Why are these results the way they are? Well, there's a couple of factors that have come from the anecdotal feedback, the qualitative results from the census, and certainly uh in many of the discussions that we've had in uh forums like this. The first one is we obviously have a very big rise in a multicultural Australia. We have one in five families that speak another language at home, um, and we're seeing more of that concentrated in uh places like Sydney, and we are seeing a less of a connection to outdoor experiences in some of those new Australians and the cultures from which they come. So understanding the benefits of outdoor education, the outdoor experiences, school camp, is probably not being sold the best to some of these uh schools or or families. And we need to do better at building that trust of where outdoor education sits in their priorities and how it contributes to the academic outcomes that the kids have in their schooling. The second one is certainly that cost of living. The discretionary spend items are being reduced, and if it's not a compulsory activity, families are then able to choose whether that becomes something that they cut from their budget to make ends meet. Our third issue is certainly that that churn is not being replaced, and you and I'm hearing loud and clear that we're losing people for good reasons in career progression and other opportunities for them, but we're not seeing the um the turn in between uh that gap and getting those people back in and replacing those roles. Um, nature therapy, as we said, we're going to look at more of a uh detailed analysis of this area because we see the huge potential of wellness tourism as well as uh nature and and uh outdoor therapy. So we'll do a little bit more of a deep dive on that. But I think the overall aspect here is that the outdoor industry has a lot of the answers to many of the problems that community are trying to solve, whether that be through education or mental health, social connections, social and well-being. So we need to make sure that we look at these as an industry and carve our way into providing solutions uh for these problems.

Advocacy Roadmap And Closing

SPEAKER_01 27:05

So there is a bit of a snapshot from our census. Needless to say, we are now doing a lot of advocacy in this area to help uh get awareness around some of the factors that we've presented today, but also in the lead up to what will be the New South Wales election in March 2027. So I look forward to presenting our election paper to you in the coming weeks. Um that's too quick, sorry. And uh we will definitely uh inform you so that you can also take those election positions with your own uh advocacy areas. So thank you all very much for joining today's Connect and Share. And we will close off the recording and open up to all our friends for a casual chat and find out what's actually happening around the grounds. So, see you all next week.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Thank you for joining the weekly outdoor industry connect and share forum, brought to you by Outdoors New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory, your peak body for the outdoor industry. Together with our members, we're shaping the future of the outdoors. See you next week for more insights and collaboration.