General Reports: Outdoor Recreation
2004 Outdoor Recreation Participation Survey of Minnesotans
The most recent State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan identified the need to better understand the changing nature of outdoor recreation in Minnesota. To meet this need, multiple research efforts are underway. One effort—which is the topic of this report—is the collection of primary information on the outdoor recreation patterns of adult Minnesotans.
To collect data from adult Minnesotans, a mail survey was conducted in March 2004, near the close of the winter recreation season. The survey covers the following topics:
- Importance of outdoor recreation in people’s lives
- Reasons for recreating outdoors
- Barriers to recreating outdoors
- Participation in outdoor recreation by activity
- Demographic patterns of outdoor recreation involvement by: population density of residence (urban to rural continuum), region in Minnesota, age class, gender, race/ethnicity, educational attainment, household income, and household size
- Clusters of activities that share similar demographic patterns
- Geographic patterns of recreation use (use and activity patterns relative to distance from home and location in Minnesota)
- Participation changes over last five years (new activities taken up and perceived trends in personal recreational involvement)
This survey effort was funded by the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources with an allocation of Land and Water Conservation Funds.
Download the reports on survey findings and on survey methodology
