Adventure awaits: Annual summit addresses conversations around outdoor recreation and tourism in Wyoming
On May 1-2, the Jay Kemmerer Wyoming Outdoor Recreation, Tourism and Hospitality (WORTH) Institute and Wyoming Office of Outdoor Recreation partnered to host the 2025 Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Summit, an event aimed to serve Wyoming’s outdoor recreation community with relevant and engaging educational programming.
Held at the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center in Laramie, the event featured presentations, panels, discussions and breakout sessions, with the overarching theme of “Outdoor Recreation in Wyoming Communities: Building Partnerships, Developing Workforce and Accessing Resources.”
“Over the next few days, the summit is going to give those in attendance the chance to foster collaboration among stakeholders across the state, build new relationships and/or strengthen old ones, support workforce development in Wyoming’s outdoor recreation industries by exploring education and training knowledge and sharpen tools to help our communities grow sustainable outdoor recreation initiatives,” stated Jay Kemmerer WORTH Institute Director Dr. Dan McCoy during opening remarks on the first morning of the event.
Additionally, McCoy noted slow growth in the state’s outdoor recreation sector compared to neighboring states – a topic that dominated many of the conversations at the event.
“I’m not standing here saying we should strive to be number one in every growth chart. Growth really isn’t the goal,” McCoy said. “But what I am saying is we owe it to ourselves to choose the future we want, not to let it happen to us by accident.”
“Over the next two days, I challenge everyone to wrestle with some big questions,” he continued. “What does the future of outdoor recreation look like for Wyoming? What opportunities are we prepared to seize? And how do we balance growth with stewardship, quality of life and authenticity?”
Controlling Wyoming’s destiny
Dave Glenn, director of the Wyoming State Parks, Historic Sites and Trails and the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Office, also spoke during the opening session and reiterated this sentiment.
“Really, the three basic candidates are where we are, where we want to go and how we get there,” he started.
While Glenn admitted outdoor recreation has come incredibly far since the 1970s – with a surge in popularity of off-road Jeeps, four-wheelers, side-by-sides, mountain bikes, GPS devices and cellphones – he reiterated economic contributions from outdoor recreation in Wyoming is far behind other states in the West.
“I would actually argue, however, that this puts us ahead, because states like Utah and Colorado are getting overwhelmed with people coming into their states and we’re not there yet,” he stated. “We are uniquely situated to control our own destiny with outdoor recreation.”
Glenn pointed out a common issue brought on by beautiful open spaces – the desire for enjoying the peace and quiet and the opportunity to bring in more revenue.
“If we attract more people, we take away from what we’re trying to do,” he said. “This is the big question, right? How do we thread the needle to bring in more revenue, to bring more people here and to grow more business, but not to kill the values we live here for?”
Glenn then offered a few suggestions on how to tackle these big questions.
“One more night, one more cheeseburger – tourism gets them here, but let’s find ways to keep them here,” he said. “One more night means one more raft trip, one more mountain bike ride and one more cast of the fly. All of these things help grow our economy and keep us from paying taxes. It’s a good thing.”
Second, Glenn recommended educating visitors and residents alike on how to recreate appropriately and finding ways to disperse recreationalists across the state to communities promoting their type of outdoor recreation.
He added, “Collaborate and build the army. The way we are all going to win and the way this is going to move forward is through collaboration with industry, transportation, etc.”
Glenn also mentioned the importance of being flexible and using available tools.
“I think we have an obligation to create outdoor recreation infrastructure in communities that want to share their brand of outdoor recreation,” Glenn said. “Educating, dispersing and concentrating these folks across the state is going to be critical.”
Worldwide conversation
To wrap up the morning session, Keynote Speaker Luis Benitez noted similar conversations are happening worldwide during his presentation titled “Can Outdoor Recreation Save the World.”
Benitez, vice president of global government affairs for Lululemon, is a former international mountaineering guide who has led more than 30 expeditions to the highest peaks on every continent.
“When I talk about the outdoor industry saving the world, really what I am talking about is how it drives physical and mental well-being, economic development, education and workforce training,” Benitez said.
But, throughout all of his travels, Benitez has found communities across the world are asking themselves the same questions as those at the 2025 Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Summit – how to protect natural resources so they don’t become overrun while simultaneously utilizing them to create revenue and feed families.
“I continued to ask these questions everywhere I went,” Benitez shared. “The mountains got bigger, the countries got further away and the expeditions got more spectacular but, really, I just wanted to answer these questions for everybody.”
The answer, he noted, is to look outward and connect global dialogue to understand which best practices are coming out of the same conversations being had across the world and what kinds of things are originating in different cultures and communities that could be shared across the board.
Keep an eye out for more from the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Summit in future editions of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup.
Hannah Bugas is the managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.
