PERSONAL PROTECTION PRODUCTS BY BOB CURLEY
Sales of protective products—once defined as sunscreen, lip balm, and insect repellent—take on new meaning in the COVID-19 era. The COVID-19 pandemic is upending the definition of “protective gear” for adventure parks, who may see new opportunities—and challenges—as they seek to keep both guests and staff members healthy. Safety is baked into the culture of aerial adventure operations, of course. That overarching culture isn’t limited to on-course safety, though. It’s also represented in retail offerings. Personal protective products have long found a place beside the souvenirs and energy drinks at park gift shops. Some of those existing products will now become more popular—and different products will be added to the inventory—as guests aim to protect themselves from more than just bugs and sun.
your store,” says Rebecca Bleecker of Adventure Suppliers, LLC, which supplies a broad range of protective products to adventure parks and other clients. Location and climate play a role in what appears on store shelves. “Some are completely in the woods and sell no sunscreen, but do well with bug spray, for example,” says Bleecker. Sonni Gibson, operations manager of High Gravity Adventures, says that while sunscreen has always been a best-seller at the Blowing Rock, N.C., park, Buffstyle neck warmers have also become popular impulse purchases among warm-weather visitors not used to the mountain chill at the park. “Those have proven to be good sellers in cold temperatures,” says Gibson.
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ALREADY POPULAR PRODUCTS Even before the coronavirus pandemic, parks did a reasonably brisk trade in products like sunglasses, sunscreen, lip balm, rain ponchos, and insect repellant to make the hours spent negotiating ropes courses or zip tours in typically rural and wooded environments as comfortable as possible. “These are basics you should have in
Also in the mountains of North Carolina, Asheville Adventure Center reports similar success selling climbing and cold-weather gloves, as well as hand warmers, hoodies, and long-sleeved shirts. “Because we are so far south, our guests include a lot of people from Florida and further south of us,” says owner Jeff Grenier. “It’s not so much they forgot it, it’s just that they don’t have it.”
At some locations, inexpensive footwear flies off the shelves. First Flight Adventure Park on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, for example, does a brisk business selling closed-toe shoes, which are required on its aerial course. “People are at the beach and the only thing they are wearing is flip-flops,” says Matt Marcus of gear supplier High Country Hardware, which sells a wide variety of gloves and face coverings, along with helmets, harnesses, carabiners, and belay systems. TO LOAN OR TO SELL? The “new normal” of operating adventure parks in the midst of a pandemic, however, has raised health concerns that make sunburns and mosquito bites seem trivial by comparison. Parks will continue to sell the types of protective products they always have, of course, but suddenly items like masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, and shoes have moved up the priority list on purchase orders. “We are getting more calls—people are not sure what post-COVID ops look like,” says Marcus. Footwear. Like First Flight Adventure Park, most ropes courses require par-
