Outdoor adventures - global and local

I’ve had quite an ‘outdoorsy’ week, which has been very enjoyable. It began with me collecting this beast, which the Family Lines has just invested in. We looked at loads of great tents, but this was the one that really took our fancy – the size, layout, headroom and general quality all appealed. So, we made the choice and look forward to a bit of camping, or maybe even ‘glamping’, very soon.

Anticipating future nights under canvass I then set off for the unashamedly plush Carden Park near Chester, to attend the Berghaus spring/summer 2010 sales conference. There, delegates representing about 30 countries in which Berghaus products are sold, were presented with details of the range that will be available to consumers around the world from next February. I can’t spill the beans on all of that here, but suffice it to say there are (as there seem to be every season these days) some very exciting developments and plenty for Press Ahead to get its PR teeth stuck into.

Berghaus has an outstanding team of sponsored athletes and many of them attended and contributed to the conference this week. Sir Chris Bonington, Mick Fowler and Leo Houlding all gave inspirational presentations about their exploits and demonstrated very clearly how they are the personification of everything that is great about the Berghaus brand. Also at the conference were Anniken Binz, Rob Jarman, Leah Crane and Carlos Suarez – they are all very much part of an extended Berghaus family.

On Tuesday, I led a workshop that Berghaus marketing director Sarah Wilson and I put together for the international representatives. It was designed to give them an insight into how sponsorship can be used to build the brand (and subsequently sales) in their market, and to give them tips on how to create their own sponsorship strategies. Our magnificent seven Berghaus athletes were also involved in the workshop and it was a thoroughly enjoyable session that the audience seemed to both enjoy and find very useful.

One of the best aspects of a Berghaus sales conference is that it gives people involved in the business around the globe the opportunity to get to know each other and share best practice and ideas. At every conference, the company lays on some sort of team activity. This time delegates were split into mixed groups and then set a series of challenges in the grounds of Carden Park. My team included a few from the UK, including Berghaus brand president Richard Cotter, along with representatives from Spain, the Czech Republic and South Korea.

Over the course of a couple of hours, we tried a range of activities and challenges, with varying degrees of success. Our team ‘excelled’ at archery and climbing, but was less successful when it came to ‘laser’ clay pigeon shooting and building a tower of crates. It was all great fun and the sight of Richard Cotter and European sales director Simon Roberts racing each other up a telegraph pole was pretty entertaining. Simon, with reckless disregard to his career prospects, reached the top first and was then given the charming title of 'tree monkey' by Richard!

The images below were taken during the crate building exercise and provide an idea of the fun that was had. The guy balancing at, and then falling off, the top is Mike Clark, Berghaus' retail operations manager.

Overall, the conference was a big success, thanks to a huge amount of work put in by people across the business, from product design and development, sourcing and logistics, and of course the marketing team who co-ordinated the whole event. Well done to everyone involved – now comes the work of selling and promoting the new range!

I returned to the North East to find that the Outdoor and Active campaign up here is really starting to gather momentum. The media coverage in the region is starting to roll in, with a lot more activity in the pipeline. Meanwhile, the team at Press Ahead has been picking up the ’phone to national journalists and visits are being arranged as I type. We’ve got a really cool (can I use that word at my age?) initiative lined up to launch in June, that I think is going to have very wide appeal. I won’t reveal all now, but watch this space for more news on that soon.

So, yes, the outdoors has been the dominant theme of my week. And with the Bank Holiday weekend weather forecast looking quite promising up here in the glorious North East, I dare say I’ll be heading outside quite a bit more over the next few days.

Heading for the hills...and the valleys, and the forests, and the water...

The UK outdoor industry has always been fairly resilient during an economic downturn. It’s not recession proof of course, but certain factors work in its favour. When people have to tighten their belts, they tend to eschew holidays abroad and instead spend leisure time closer to home (an Outdoor Industries Association survey from as recently as January established that 49% of the UK public is now more likely to consider an outdoor break in this country, rather than head overseas). The great outdoors offers a handy venue that is generally low cost, while camping and caravanning are also budget alternatives to hotels. Similarly, consumers tend to cut back on luxury fashion products but will continue to invest in practical, durable kit such as that designed for the outdoors.

In the current economic climate, there is even more happening that indicates that 2009 will turn out to be a strong year for the outdoor industry. For a start, from January to March the country experienced something close to a proper winter, which had an immediate positive impact on sales of products like waterproof jackets, insulation layers, and hats and gloves. Meanwhile, the Pound was at its weakest against the Dollar and Euro, so many people chose to stay in the UK to enjoy their winter outdoor adventures, keeping money in the country’s economy.

As we head towards the summer, the situation continues to favour the outdoor industry. In recent weeks, we have enjoyed bursts of warm, dry weather which has focused eyes on outdoor horizons. Campsites are enjoying a boom time and the Camping and Caravanning Club has reported a huge increase in advance bookings for sites across the country (27% up on the same time last year). As well as sunshine, there have also been cloudbursts, so the need to be properly equipped with waterproof kit has remained at the forefront of minds.

And now the Met Office has announced that we can expect a hot, dry summer. This is going to do no harm at all to business for campsites, outdoor activity providers and manufacturers of tents, warm weather performance outdoor products, and especially footwear. At the same time, the general interest in and appetite for outdoor activities has been on a steady upward curve for several years. This trend is not about to change and is actually being accelerated by numerous central and regional government initiatives designed to get people into the outdoors.

So, it makes absolute sense for different parts of the UK to promote the outdoors as a key part of their tourism offer. This week, North East England started its own campaign to do just that. The Outdoor and Active initiative has kicked off by encouraging the region’s public to move around the North East to try out the many outdoor activities that are available really close to home. Press Ahead arranged a day of fun for the bosses of three outdoor tourism businesses from different parts of the region. They tried out each other’s specialist activities and visited various locations, all in one busy day.

Amy Craggs from Beamish Wild Ropes Activity Centre, Simon White from Tees Active watersports and Andrew Straw from Saddle Skedaddle cycling tours were our three adventurers. They really got stuck into the task and I think they enjoyed their day – the photos certainly seem to indicate that they had a good time.

We’re looking forward to getting the North East into the outdoors over the next few months, but we have also been tasked with bringing visitors from elsewhere to the region. We have some phenomenal outdoor locations up here and they are generally really accessible. However, many of these are relatively unknown, so there’s a great opportunity to show off this wonderful part of the world to a huge audience that is absolutely ready to head for the outdoors and open to suggestions. We’ve got some exciting, and I think innovative, ideas up our technical wicking fabric sleeves, so expect to see and hear much more about Outdoor and Active in North East England soon.

Of course, the North East is not the only region or nation that is promoting its outdoor assets this year, which is even more good news for the outdoor industry in general. Taking all of the above into consideration, it is no wonder that brands like Berghaus remain relatively bullish about prospects for 2009. Although there is no complacency among firms and there are previously successful retailers and brands in the sector that are really struggling (or worse), this particular business landscape is in generally better health than many others at the moment.

In short, heading for the hills (and the rest) has never been more popular. As Richard Cotter, Berghaus brand president, stated recently:
“Over the next few years, outdoor participation will increase massively, not in its original sense, but in the widest context. More than ever, people want to find a route of escape from everyday life and outdoor activities offer that. They choose to do something active, but not just one activity. These days, the opportunity to try out a wide range of ‘adventure sports’ is massive and this is one of the fastest growing sectors in the whole leisure industry.

“Huge numbers of people are heading outdoors every weekend looking for their definition of adventure – camping, hiking, scrambling, biking, climbing and much more. Crucially, many of these people have never previously been aligned to the outdoor industry and only now do companies like Berghaus really have the chance to communicate with them."

Amen to that. Right, I’m off to find a map, a compass and plan an adventure or two of my own.