Great Gear to Lure Kids to the Great Outdoors

SALT LAKE CITY -- The staycation comes to the great outdoors.

The Woodstock for all things climbing, kayaking and camping -- The Outdoor Retailer Summer Market -- wound up here this past week. I made the pilgrimage.

The and current economic turmoil is having an interesting, two-sided effect on outdoor-goods retail sales. On one hand, this retail subset is showing it can stand up to a soft economy: While the rest of the apparel business, like Philips-Van Heusen(PVH), The Warneco Group(WRC) and Oxford Industries(OXM), is having a bumpy time in this downturn, dollar sales for outdoor goods were up 9% year-to-date through June, according to the Outdoor Industry Association.

That's due in part to sales of recession-friendly stuff like camping gear, charcoal (a nice, long cookout makes a great pseudo vacation) and the like.

On the other hand, industry vendors, retailers and travel suppliers are fretting over a serious new long-term threat: Kids are losing their taste for going outside. Everything from National Park use to participation days in outdoor activities like kayaking and the like to the ultimate outdoor rite of passage -- broken bones -- is down among kids.

To fight back, the outdoor industry is looking to get players like REI, The North Face(VFC), Timberland(TBL) and others to back a roughly $20 million marketing campaign dubbed, "I Will," to help kids see that their real lives are as interesting as their Second Lives.

"We are going to have to work harder as an industry to get the next generation to be passionate about what we are passionate about," says Frank Hugelmeyer, president of the Outdoor Industry Association. "We can do it. But it is going to take effort."