Best Outdoor Businesses

    

In continuing with our presentation of Starting Your Own Outdoor Business, this page highlights some specific outdoor start-up businesses. Here are the main topic headings for this page • Six Best Outdoor Businesses, • Resorts & Lodging, • Specialty Travel & Tours Businesses, • Recreational & Parks Management, • Niche Farming, •Logging & Land Clearing, • 11 Fun Start-Up Businesses and • Start-Up Business Books.

Six Best Outdoor Businesses-       

Despite the current lingering global recession, recent data from the tourism industry suggests that demand for small up-scale resorts has been steady through 2009 and into 2010. While many large resorts suffered a down-turn in reservations, bookings at ski resorts, eco-resorts, and other specialty resorts showed growth this winter thanks to heavy snowfall in many parts of the world. That is not to say, the sky is the limit, because economic conditions can alter current trends.

 

According to a hospitality, travel, & tourism professor at the University of Denver in 2008: "The resort industry is booming, increasing the demand for energetic management personnel well versed in the unique issues and problems of resort management and operations.  Job functions include activity programming, guest safety, and security, corporate and meeting planning, the management of seasonal employees, front-end and back-end management, and operations that include engineering, maintenance, and being a host to a multitude of resort-specific tasks  Other related areas of professional growth are: ski areas, golf and tennis resorts, spas, theme parks, gambling & casinos, resort designing and landscaping, marketing and promoting resorts, cruise ships, mountain climbing venues, and “Gold” resorts. Guest activities including reservations, accommodations, & personal services". (Source: Resorts: Management and Operation, by Dr. Robert Christie Mill)

 

 

 

 

 

Resorts & Lodging

Therefore, we feel that the greatest opportunities in resorts and lodging for business start-ups, will be for ski lodges, strategically located bed & breakfasts, and niche resorts.  The start-up costs and competition among large or luxury resorts makes this an almost impossible venture for the single business owner, so the smaller the better.  Ski resorts often have other activities to engage in besides skiing and snowboarding, such as snowmobiling, sledding, horse-drawn sleds, dog-sledding, ice-skating, indoor swimming, hot-tubing, game rooms, and local forms of entertainment.  For these reasons, it is important that you find your niche in this demanding yet lucrative environment.  ( Source: Careers & Job Hunting-Resort Management & Travel Guiding by StreetDirectory.Com)

Specialty Travel & Tours

Another good outdoor business is starting a specialty travel & tour service.  Unlike traditional travel agencies, this business focuses on specialty tour packages from white-water rafting to wildlife safaris to tours of gourmet restaurants.  There is increased demand for specialty travel tours. (Source: "Start Your Own Specialty Travel & Tourism Business" a book by Entrepreneur.Com )

 

 

Recreational & Park Management

Businesses, employment, and technological advances in recreational science for parks, wilderness, and protected areas have expanded greatly over the past three decades, reflecting the fact that much outdoor recreation occurs on prized public lands & water.  Increased competition for these spaces translates into jobs and business opportunities in the areas of “Green” &/or Environmental “Sustainability” Engineering & Consulting. (Source: Managing Recreation, Parks and Leisure Services by Dr Christopher Edginton )

Managing Recreation, Parks and Leisure Services: An Introduction 

 

 

 

 

 

Niche Farming

The next big area is farming or in tech lingo agricultural engineering.  In addition to traditional big crop and big livestock production farms, new farms include organic farming, herbal, or specialty plant farms, niche livestock production, and wild farms.  Agricultural technicians specialize in crop enhancement and livestock maximization with or without chemicals or stimulants.  Even though “Sustainable Agriculture” or ecologically responsible farming has to sustain the farmer as well as the land, we find that this start-up business requires specialty livestock production little in the way of initial costs.  An excellent book on starting your own farm is: “"You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise," by Joel F. Salatin.  Also, the USDA has literally millions of reference materials available at: the Cooperative State Research, Education, & Extension Division.

(For more information on Organic and Herb Farming, see our next section below, Start-Up Business Profiles)

Logging & Land Clearing

The last Featured Business Area, is Logging and Land Clearing.  While controversial, logging and land clearing is a money-making business and recently we’ve seen growing demand for recycling and reusing the debris hauled away from excavation sites.  For those not afraid of very hard work, we found an inspiring story of one man who turned a teen-age hobby into a multi-million dollar business.  We believe that business owners in this area will “turn green” when they realize profits from their disposal materials.  Go to 'Finding A Way to do it Yourself,' by Dan Cristiani, owner of Gotta Go, Inc, Earth First, Inc., and Dan Cristiani Construction to read how to do it.

Moving the Earth- A Book on Sale at B&N

 

 

 

 

Eleven Fun Start Up Businesses

25 businesses you can start and run from your home

 

Entrepreneur.Com offers 25 Businesses You Can Start and Run From Home., or try Entreprenuer.Com/Small Business Idea Center which targets these 11 businesses as being promising outdoors endeavors:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Start Up Business Books

 

U.S. Parks Ranger

 

←Go Back to Page 1 - Starting an Outdoor Business

For More Info on Outdoor Businesses & Jobs, please go to Great Outdoor Employment under the Services Tab on the Main Menu.

 

 

 

 

 


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