One Year Later: 57hours Survey Exposes Impact of COVID-19 on Outdoor Guiding
When the pandemic hit, we surveyed 100+ active outdoor guides on how their businesses were affected by COVID-19. Then we followed up a year later. Here are those results.
During the early stages of the pandemic, we surveyed our international network of professional outdoor guides to understand the many ways that COVID-19 was impacting their guiding businesses. Now, a year later, we’re releasing the results of a follow-up survey conducted to help recognize shifting trends in guided outdoor adventuring. The goal was to gain insight into how the outdoor guiding community is responding to the challenges of COVID-19, both in the field and in their marketing strategies, so that we can support accordingly — all with the larger goal of ensuring the guides we partner with make it through these unprecedented times.
In May 2020, when the first survey was conducted, 92% of guides had already been out of work for several months. In April 2021, the majority of guides surveyed indicated they lost over half of their guiding income in the past year to COVID-19. Even as travel picks back up, 50% of respondents said their upcoming 2021 bookings are still down compared to a typical year, and guides are still suffering financially from trip cancellations due to COVID-19.
So, when do guides see things returning to normal? What are some of the ways they’ve seen outdoor adventuring shift?
Read the detailed account of our survey results and key findings: