"The outdoor market is booming and its best days are probably yet to come," explains Dr. Eike Wenzel, Chief Editor for Zukunftsinstitut, a future-oriented business think tank. In spite of this exciting prospect, the industry will need to monitor emerging trends closely, while opening their employee’s minds – and their display shelves – to product innovations. Leading up to the 16th edition of the OutDoor Trade Fair, which will take place in Friedrichshafen from July 16th to 19th 2009, the Zukunftsinstitut looks ahead to the outdoor market’s future.
Changes in social and cultural values are increasingly leading people to value immaterial experiences over the accumulation of material wealth. Unique experiences in the outdoors, far away from mass consumerism, are an escape from the pressures of our high-speed lifestyles, and provide us with fresh input and new opportunities to redefine ourselves. From trekking to alpine skiing, outdoor sports unite people from all walks of life, income brackets, ages and nationalities in communities which draw their sense of identity from the outdoor lifestyle. In the process, nature becomes the setting for unique and exciting experiences. This is why successful companies need to identify their customers’ needs as they emerge. Personal health, renewed environmentalism, customisation and demographic change are the major trends that are set to have the greatest impact on the outdoor industry.
Whether it’s choosing a new breakfast cereal, taking up a new sport or buying a car, few consumer choices are made these days without considering their potential health effects. Nature and the outdoors have acquired strong connotations of health and well-being. Since the outdoor industry highlights the health benefits of exercise and sports in the outdoors, it can only profit from this development.
Media reports on the impending horrors of climate change have enhanced nature’s aura of vulnerability and uniqueness. The desire to experience nature – close-up and "now or never" – runs parallel to consumer demands for a more mindful approach to our natural environment. Outdoor advocates as well as manufacturers who have made sustainability the cornerstone of their corporate philosophies are in demand. It is not about choosing either ecological awareness or functionality. In future, success will be based on a combination of these two factors.
The outdoor industry is not a self-contained universe. As in every industry, a highly diverse range of segments are having an increasingly strong impact on each other. The outdoor sector is part of the tourism and leisure industries, it is among the many ‘pleasure’ markets, and it also plays a part in the conventional sportswear and sports equipment industries. This exposes the outdoor industry to a number of risks, including the possibility of "infiltration" by competing industries, the dilution of brand images and retailing concepts, and the potential for outdoor companies to misjudge or overestimate their strengths. These new crossover industries however will present a host of unforeseen opportunities, particularly in terms of outdoor markets. The young and booming outdoor industry should therefore adopt this holistic concept as its unique selling point and unite its innovative elements.
According to the Zukunftsinstitut’s analyses of emerging market trends, five key trends will shape tomorrow’s outdoor industry: 1. The outdoor market will become integral to consumer lifestyles and will be seen as a source of pleasure. 2. The outdoor industry will merge with other cross-over industries, including the personal health, food, tourism, services, fashion and, in particular, technology industries. 3. Markets with flat hierarchies, such as the outdoor segment, must more than ever address the concerns of a critical public that is in the midst of forming a new consumer market marked by ethical consumerism. 4. Consumer demand for the outdoor lifestyle is no longer subject to any dogma and will create a mass market within the next five years. 5. To win over new customers, the outdoor industry must find them where they are: in their 24/7 high-speed lives.
Further information and a full version of the study are available at www.outdoor-show.de