Resources for Sea Otter Australia Summit 2025

This page is a collection of resources for SOAS2025 delegates. Here, you’ll find:

  • Michele Archie’s SOAS2025 conference presentation

  • Resources mentioned in the presentation plus others related to building local wealth through trails and outdoor recreation

  • An overview of Harbinger’s virtual live and on-demand courses for trail and town champions

  • A 25% discount code for all Sea Otter Australia Summit delegates through November 2025

  • A free resource: DIY Guide to Conducting and Using Visitor and Recreational User Research

  • Links to webinars relevant to this general topic area

 
 

The presentation & Slides

Download the slide deck here, or catch the recorded presentation using the button below.

Watch the recording

Harbinger’s Online Courses for Outdoor Recreation and Trail Communities

Harbinger’s virtual courses help community leaders, trail advocates, planners, and tourism professionals turn outdoor recreation ideas into action. Each course blends real-world examples with practical frameworks to strengthen local capacity, collaboration, and economic outcomes.

Topics range from Trail Towns 101 and the Bicycle Tourism Blueprint to Creative Placemaking, DIY Economic Impact Analysis, Outdoor Recreation Roadmap, and Facilitation for Collaboration. Participants learn how to plan, market, and manage recreation initiatives that generate community wealth, tell authentic stories of place, and build long-term partnerships.

Whether you’re looking to measure and communicate the value of trails, design community-driven tourism, or lead collaborative projects with confidence, Harbinger’s courses offer clear roadmaps, practical tools, and a community of peers working toward the same goal: expanding the power of place through outdoor recreation.

For SOAS2025 Delegates

Use the code SOAS25 for a 25% discount on all live/virtual or on-demand courses through 30 November 2025

 

Winter/Spring 2025 Live Virtual Courses

Early registration discount on Winter/Spring courses through Oct. 31

Creative Placemaking: Creating Communities We Love Through Arts & Culture, Diverse Partners & Community Spaces Thursdays, Jan. 22-Feb. 5, 2026 + optional Q&A Feb. 12. Three 2-hour sessions.

Do-It-Yourself Visitor Research for Parks, Trails, Heritage Sites and the Towns that Serve Them Thursdays, Feb. 19-March 5, 2026. Three 90-minute sessions.

Facilitator Training for Collaboration & Consensus Wednesdays, Feb. 11-25, 2026. Three 90-minute sessions.

Bicycle Tourism Blueprint: A Community-Led Approach to Attracting Cyclists, Boosting Businesses, and Creating a Bicycle-Friendly Destination Wednesdays, March 4-25, 2026. Four 90-minute sessions.

Tell Your Economic Story Without Hiring an Economist: Trails, Parks, Heritage Areas & Conserved Lands Thursdays, April 9 - May 7, 2026. Five 1-hour sessions.

On-Demand Courses

Can’t join our live courses because of time zones or timing? Harbinger’s on-demand options make it easy to learn whenever it fits your schedule.

For a registration fee of $300US, you’ll get:

  • Full access to recordings and resources from a recent course.

  • Direct instructor support by email for questions and clarifications.

  • Personalised coaching, including a short pre-course meeting and a 45-minute post-course session to help you apply what you learn.

  • Professional learning credits (when applicable).

Choose from popular Harbinger courses like Trail Towns 101, Bicycle Tourism Blueprint, Outdoor Recreation Roadmap, Creative Placemaking, and DIY Economic Impact Analysis. Most courses in our catalog are available on-demand.

Take the course at your own pace — and we’ll be here to support you along the way.

Learn more about Harbinger's courses
 

Building Local Wealth Through Outdoor Recreation & Trails Resources


Community Capital/Wealth resources

Promoting Community Viability & Sustainability: The Community Capitals Framework (Lionel J. “Bo” Beaulieu, Purdue University, 2014)

Using Community Capitals to Develop Assets for Positive Community Change (Mary Emery, Susan Fey, Cornelia Flora, CD Practice newsletter, 2006)

Wealth: The Eight Capitals (Wealthworks.org) Besides the eight capitals framework, WealthWorks offers a roadmap for trail and recreation regions to grow local wealth through collaboration—connecting partners, assets, and markets in ways that strengthen community ownership and prosperity.

 

Thinking beyond tourism resources

Tested in Idaho — initiative to promote the state as a testing grounds for outdoor gear and equipment

Montana Movers Study, Tara Mastel, et al, 2021 — explores who’s moving to Montana communities and why

Trail Map for Rural Development in America, Outdoor Recreation Roundtable — includes a brief overview of rural recreation county performance, along with a more comprehensive road map for using outdoor recreation as a rural development strategy, including the types of people and positions included in an outdoor rec economy

Recreation Counties Attract New Residents and Higher Incomes, Headwaters Economics 2019.

Inspiring the Future Outdoor Economy, State Outdoor Business Alliance Network, 2021

Made By Mountains — Western North Carolina outdoor development partnership

Connect Trails and Towns Resources

Pinhoti Experience Foundation — organizes the annual trail festival and connects trail users to gateway communities

Deciding On Trails: 7 Practices of Healthy Trail Towns, Amy Camp — accessible, tactical and easy-to-read guide for becoming more trail-friendly

Great Allegheny Passage Trail Town Program and economic impact studies. Download the GAP Trail Town Guide for insights from one of the grandmother trail town programs.

Trail Town Assessments

Progress Fund Trail Town Assessment (assessment tool for communities near rail trails & other long-distance routes)

League of American Cyclists Bicycle Friendly Community (application doubles as an assessment tool)

International Mountain Bicycling Association Trail-Friendly Community self-assessment (for communities investing in mountain bike tourism)

Parks & Trails New York Trail Town Bike-Around Assessment (bike-based community assessment)

“Leverage who you are and what you have” Resources

Cover photo from the Conesus Lake Libation Loop itinerary on ExploreGeneseeValley.com (check out Trail Towns under the “Places” menu).

Building a better Trout Town. Fernie’s fishing fix — Fernie, BC tourism promotion agency investing in fishing access improvements

4VI Nanaimo and Cumberland Mountain mountain bike trail enhancements

Communities Powered By Travel: Oakridge, Oregon — 7-minute video about the small community of Oakridge bootstrapping its way to becoming a mountain biking destination — and growing a local ukelele festival and hatching the idea for the We Speak frontline hospitality worker training program along the way.

Free Resource

Download Harbinger’s new guide to conducting and using visitor and recreational research user research. This do-it-yourself guide was produced through a collaborative partnership with the Lower Susquehanna Heritage Greenway, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Outdoor Recreation Council of British Columbia, and the Wisconsin Office of Outdoor Recreation. This is a tool to educate, support, build capacity, and encourage data collection, supporting communities and small-to-mid-sized outdoor recreation, heritage and conservation organizations to produce solid research and use it for good.

See the two-webinar overview of the guide we did with the Outdoor Recreation Council of British Columbia, one of Harbinger’s partners in developing it: DIY Trail and Visitor Research and Using the Findings from DIY Trail and Visitor Research.