Teams from eight competitively selected Wisconsin communities are collecting data about visitors and trail users this summer to help them estimate the economic contributions of outdoor recreation. Harbinger and the Wisconsin Office of Outdoor Recreation are supporting them with a series of workshops, one-on-one coaching, and layout and editing for final short reports. Reports will be released in Fall 2024.

This project has encouraged most of the communities to invest in new trail or vehicle counters, expanded skills for staff and volunteers, new visitor surveys or all three—building capacity to collect and use data long into the future.