North Carolina’s outdoor recreation industry brings the state $28 billion annually, and it’s only projected to go up from there, according to the Citizen-Times.
The industry also helped create 260,000 jobs, $8.3 billion in wages and salaries, and $1.3 billion in state and local tax revenue. More than half the state's population – 56 percent of residents – take part in outdoor recreation annually.
North Carolina is tied with Colorado for the sixth-largest outdoor economy in the U.S. Peter Metcalf, a leader in the outdoor recreation field and founder of Utah’s Black Diamond Equipment Co., expressed his optimism to the Citizen-Times about the future of North Carolina’s outdoor recreation economy.
“I think it’s incredible, the combination of the public lands you have here, the evolving positive attitude of elected officials toward the role that protected and appropriately funded infrastructure of public lands play in the economy is very high,” Metcalf said.
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