The active leisure pursuits market examined by Mintel effectively straddles the sports and leisure markets, a position that presents a broad range of opportunities to appeal to different types of participants, but also exposes it to wide-ranging competition. And although these pursuits are all well-established, many have generally struggled to make significant inroads into the mainstream of either sector.

A number of factors are currently converging to give active leisure pursuits a platform for real growth: consumers’ leisure preferences; concerns over health, fitness and obesity; the growth of the experience economy and activity holiday market; and more adventurous tastes among the growing ‘grey’ population. All these needs can be catered for by the pursuits examined in this report. However, they continue to be hamstrung by a series of flaws ranging from a shortage of facilities, funding and coaching to the comparatively high cost of taking part and the time-consuming nature of many of them, as well as continued failure to convert occasional participation into regular.

This report assesses active leisure pursuits’ ability to overcome these challenges and respond to the opportunities by examining the hypothesis that: “Experience-hungry consumers are increasingly looking for new and interesting activities to take part in. Coupled with consumer concerns about health and, in particular, rising levels of obesity, this has led to an upsurge in the popularity of active leisure pursuits”.

Main themes of the report:

Do consumers take part in active leisure pursuits on a frequent or occasional basis?

Can active leisure pursuits give consumers what they want from their leisure time?

How big an influence on participation are health and fitness factors?

What are the main barriers to increased participation?

How accessible are active leisure pursuits?

Can active leisure pursuits adapt to an ageing population structure?

Do active leisure pursuits compete in the sports or leisure markets?

How are active leisure pursuits perceived by consumers?

What are the key target markets?