The first one graphs sea kayaking, river kayaking, whitewater kayaking, kayak tours, and stand up paddle boarding. SUP is growing. WW is treading down slightly, but river kayaking is holding the same. Sea kayaking is dropping off. With the interest holding in rough water kayaking, I would have expected that the increase in rough water sea kayaking videos and interest would have gained a bit back. The kayak tours search is holding steady, which seems to suggest to me that people are still interested in kayaking.

The second graph shows the decline of the big four U.S. canoe brands over time in search compared to SUP.

The third shows canoeing, kayaking, and SUPing is comparison to the growth of the overall watersports catagory in search. SUP is growing the most as would be expected. What I find interesting is that in-season canoeing and kayaking show more growth than watersports, but out of the northern hemisphere summer season, canoeing and kayaking drops under watersports growth rate. This seems to suggest to me that canoeing and kayaking fails to hold people’s attention in the off-season like other watersports might.

I agree with you about the lack of hype around the Outdoor Retailer shows. From the perspective of an outdoor retailer, not that many people who shop for this type of gear care that much about next years product or the newest and greatest thing. I think that could change with better product releases.

I’d speculate that some of the decline in sea kayaking over time results from the movement of sales from specialty stores to big box stores. In specialty stores, there’s a better chance that the salesperson will be a passionate sea kayaker. In a big box store, chances are that they’ve never been in a sea kayak. First time buyers want ease of entry and exit and stability at a cheap price. In a big box store, it’s easy to sell them that boat. With a specialty store with a trained staff and passionate sea kayakers on staff, it’s easy to teach them why they might not want that.

All this is suggestive: It hits me as strange that the interest in these four brands might be diminishing. Then if your blog gets more hits than UK Sea Kayaks, intuition tells me that interest has grown, and hits arrive through different vehicles. It would be interesting to know if sales figures match the trend in Google searches.

Then, what would be the ratio of unique hits coming from links or saved bookmarks to direct Google searches? I for one, access most blogs form aggregators and bookmarks, and only rarely type a search. The same for Sea Kayak manufacturers.

All the best,

As he says. “It isnt NO fear, it’s KNOW fear” Risk is assesed on a basis of ability & belief… however yo get some guys who base this risk assesment on ‘if I do make it’ rather than “if I don’t’

I would NEVER do the stuff he does. But the world needs folk like him.

Great blog! Keep up the adventures, stories and pictures.

Jake

regards

Peter
http://kayakr.net/