Outdoor Recreation Tourism | Western Community As

Outdoor Recreation & Rural Tourism Solutions Roundtable

Wednesday, May 6, 2026 • 11-2 p.m. PT/12-3 p.m. MT

Live via Zoom

Free • Open to everyone

Across the West, rural communities are embracing outdoor recreation as part of their tourism and community development strategies — and discovering real sources of possibility along the way. Trails, waterways, public lands, wildlife, historic sites, and outdoor experiences can all be invested in and stewarded to bring new energy to downtowns, support local businesses, and create reasons for people to visit, stay longer, and return. When approached with care and meaningful local engagement, recreation-based tourism can strengthen both local economies and community life.

This WeCAN Solutions Roundtable will explore how rural places are putting outdoor recreation to work as a tourism strategy on their own terms. Rather than promoting a single “right” model, the session will feature real examples from communities at different stages of outdoor recreation tourism development — showing how local leaders are thinking ahead, learning from peers, and adapting as conditions evolve. We’ll look at challenges honestly while exploring the many creative, practical paths communities are forging.

Co-hosted by the Western Community Assessment Network (WeCAN) and the Western Rural Development Center.

Downtown Whitefish, Montana, with Big Mountain in the background. Brian Schott photo.

More about the roundtable

This WeCAN Solutions Roundtable on Outdoor Recreation and Rural Tourism will explore how rural communities across the West are using outdoor recreation as a tourism strategy in thoughtful, community-centered ways. You’ll hear — and have the chance to share — what’s working, what communities are learning along the way, and how local leaders are shaping tourism that supports businesses, respects residents, and fits the places they call home.

We’ll look at how rural places are making decisions that reflect local priorities, set expectations early, and respond to challenges and unintended consequences as they arise.

You’ll leave the roundtable with new ideas you can adapt in your own community, clearer insight into the tradeoffs recreation-based tourism can bring, and new connections and inspiration to shape visitor economies that are sustainable, right-sized, and rooted in what makes your place unique.

What you'll experience:

A keynote conversation with Elizabeth Sodja, Lindsey Romaniello, and Jake Powell from the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative, exploring how western communities are navigating both the opportunities and pressures of recreation-driven tourism.
Six solution-focused community stories, shared by rural leaders, land managers, Extension staff, and nonprofit partners working on the ground. These short, practical examples will highlight real decisions, lessons learned, and approaches communities are testing and refining. (Story presenters will be announced soon.)
Peer learning and exchange with participants from rural communities and supporting organizations across the Western U.S. and beyond.

About our keynote speakers

We’ll begin with a candid conversation featuring Elizabeth Sodja, Lindsey Romaniello, and Jake Powell from the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative. Drawing on GNAR’s research and work with western communities, Liz and Lindsey will share insights into how recreation-driven tourism is shaping housing markets, local economies, and community life. With Jake guiding the exchange, they’ll explore what communities across the West are experiencing as outdoor recreation becomes a larger part of their economic future — including the opportunities, tradeoffs, and hard questions that come with it.

Lindsey Romaniello is a PhD student at the University of Utah and a researcher with the Gateway and Natural Amenity Regions (GNAR) Initiative, where she studies planning challenges in rural and gateway communities across the western United States. She previously worked as a recreation and community planning consultant, supporting towns and regions across the country, and has experience in local government as a municipal planner in the Rocky Mountain West. Her work focuses on long-range planning and land use policy, with current research exploring housing affordability, infrastructure development, and water access. Lindsey is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Elizabeth Sodja, MNR, MCMP, is the Program Coordinator for the Gateway & Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative at Utah State University (USU) Extension. She has a decade of communications and community outreach experience, and has worked with federal, state, and local government agencies. Before joining GNAR, she worked for USU's Center for Community Engagement and the National Park Service. She grew up in a small town in Utah where most family vacations were either camping, fishing, or in a National Park, and has a passion for helping small towns around the west preserve what is special about them. When she isn't working, you can usually find her and her husband climbing a rock, living out of a tent, or driving down a dirt road covered in dog hair.

Jake Powell is an Associate Professor and Extension Specialist in Utah State University's Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning. Jake graduated from Utah State University in 2008 with a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture and a minor in Watershed Sciences. After working professionally as a land planner and designer, Jake returned to pursue a Master of Science degree in Landscape Architecture from Penn State University. Jake’s subsequent professional career has focused on uniting communities to their surrounding landscapes through collaborative planning and design efforts. He has worked throughout the Intermountain West to envision and implement projects that span the scales from watershed planning and restoration efforts, natural resource conservation plans, recreation infrastructure designs, and developing community economic growth opportunities.

Jake’s research and extension efforts focus on analyzing how the design and planning of communities, infrastructure, and sites affect water quality, quantity, and conservation at both the site and watershed scale, gateway community design and planning challenges, and recreation amenity development and stewardship. Jake is the co-director of the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative and works with his colleagues to provide a hub for all things gateway community related.