The Official Website of the State of Arkansas
To coincide with the release of the 2024 outdoor recreation impact data by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), we have created an updated set of data tools to measure the statewide contributions of outdoor recreation to GDP, employment, and wages. These tools display insights ranging from the average pay for outdoor manufacturing jobs to fishing’s direct impact on Arkansas GDP.
Each interactive visualization includes example use cases to guide exploration. These examples are meant to serve as starting points: the tools themselves contain hundreds of potential stories about Arkansas’s evolving outdoor economy.
One of the most common misconceptions about the outdoor economy is that it consists only of tourism and retail activity. In Arkansas, that is far from the truth.
The bar chart below shows a breakdown of the state’s outdoor economy by industry sector. The total height of the bar represents the full direct contribution of outdoor recreation to Arkansas GDP in 2024: $4.96 billion. We use the term “direct” because this value does not capture any follow-on impacts, such as the ripple effect created when outdoor recreation workers spend their incomes locally. While Retail Trade and the broad Arts, Entertainment, Recreation, Accommodation, and Food Services (AERAFS) sector make up roughly half of this total, the other half tells a different story. Arkansas benefits significantly from the supply chains that bring outdoor goods to market—particularly manufacturing, transportation, warehousing, and wholesale trade, which together contributed $1.87 billion directly to the state economy.
Users can interact with the visualization to gain additional context. You can:
To illustrate one use case, change the metric to “Value Added as Share of State GDP (%)” and add California to the chart. When we make this change, two things stand out: outdoor recreation accounts for a larger share of Arkansas’s economy than California’s, and the two states’ industry compositions differ substantially. Indeed, outdoor manufacturing and wholesale trade represent a much larger share of Arkansas’s outdoor economy.r durable goods manufacturing steadily increased its contribution to GDP in 2020 and 2021, the AERAFS sector—more directly tied to tourism—experienced a sharp decline during the early pandemic years.
While the bar chart is ideal for comparing the composition of outdoor economies across states and years, the line chart below is better suited for analyzing trends over time within specific industries.
By default, the chart displays outdoor recreation’s value added as a share of state GDP for Arkansas and California from 2012 to 2024. This adjustment for overall state economy size allows for more meaningful comparisons. As the data show, the two states followed relatively similar trajectories until 2019, when California’s outdoor economy was hit harder by the pandemic. A key reason for this difference is California’s heavier reliance on tourism-driven outdoor activity, which we observed in the earlier bar chart. Interestingly, the gap created between the two outdoor economies in 2020 has persisted through 2024, reflecting the fact that Arkansas’s outdoor economy now accounts for a larger share of the state economy than it did prior to the pandemic, while California’s outdoor economy has stabilized near its 2019 share.
To explore this further, change the line chart’s metric to “Value Added to GDP ($),” remove California from the comparison, deselect “All Industries,” and select “Durable Goods Manufacturing” and “Arts, Entertainment, Recreation, Accommodation, and Food Services (AERAFS);” note that the dropdown menu displays the hierarchy of industry categories. Durable outdoor goods include long-lasting, “durable” equipment like bicycles and kayaks. You’ll see that while outdoor durable goods manufacturing steadily increased its contribution to GDP in 2020 and 2021, the AERAFS sector—more directly tied to tourism—experienced a sharp decline during the early pandemic years. Of course, we should not ignore the fact that Arkansas’s outdoor tourism segment has maintained very strong growth since 2020.
Another valuable use of the line chart is exploring wage levels within the outdoor economy. One especially useful metric for students and job seekers is “Average Compensation Relative to Average for All Jobs in the State (%).” This metric shows whether outdoor jobs in a given sector tend to pay more—or less—than the statewide average.
When applied to Manufacturing, Wholesale Trade, and Transportation and Warehousing, we see that outdoor jobs in all three sectors tend to pay above average. In 2024, outdoor wholesale trade jobs paid 67% more than the Arkansas average, while transportation and warehousing paid 69% more.
Users can hover over data points on the chart to see how Arkansas ranks nationally in “wage premiums” for each sector. For instance, in 2024, outdoor transportation and warehousing jobs in Arkansas offered the 2nd highest relative pay in the country.
To view pay in dollar terms, simply switch the metric to “Average Annual Compensation ($).” When doing so, we find that Arkansas outdoor wholesale jobs paid an average of $120,611 in 2024.
In addition to industry-level data, the BEA’s Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account also tracks GDP contributions by specific recreation activities. The line chart below visualizes trends for Fishing (excludes Boating), Hunting/Shooting/Trapping, and Motorcycling/ATVing.
When hovering over a line at a given year, users can view not just the dollar value, but also Arkansas’s national rank for that activity and growth from the previous year. Focusing on hunting and related activities, for example, we see a dramatic increase: from $94 million in 2019 to $238 million in 2024. This surge likely reflects manufacturing expansions from companies like SIG Sauer, as well as the revitalization of the Remington ammunition facility in Lonoke.
While this activity-level data is rich, it comes with important limitations. The BEA does not break out most outdoor tourism spending by activity. Instead, all general tourism is grouped into a single category: “Travel and Tourism.” (The exceptions are camping and RVing, which are reported separately.) As a result, activities like cycling, which attract thousands of tourists to Arkansas each year, may appear underrepresented in activity-level charts.
To dive deeper into GDP contributions by activity, users can:
For cross-state comparisons, it’s best to use “Value Added as Share of State GDP (%),” which accounts for differences in economy size. To see why this matters, try leaving the metric as “Value Added to GDP ($)” and add Texas to the chart.
In 2024, fishing contributed $687 million to Texas’s economy—more than eight times the amount in Arkansas. But when adjusted for total state GDP, fishing plays a proportionally larger role in Arkansas than in Texas. Switching the metric to a relative share makes these comparisons more meaningful.
The examples above highlight just a few of the insights these tools can offer, but their real value lies in what users discover for themselves. Whether you’re an educator, policymaker, entrepreneur, or outdoor enthusiast, we invite you to explore the data tools, ask your own questions, and uncover the stories that matter to you—and to Arkansas’s growing outdoor economy.
Definitions below are the official definitions provided by the Bureau of Economic Analysis or utilize information provided by the Bureau.