Hiking craze takes off, and sales of hiking footwear rise with it

Luxembourg, located in northwestern Europe, is one of the best countries for hiking: The Mullerthal Trail is one of the most famous hiking trails in Luxembourg. Its distinctive rocky landscape attracted more than 160,000 hikers in 2020, an increase of nearly 15,000 tourists compared to the previous year.

In addition to offline, the average number of views of the subheadings in the "Hiking trails" category on Luxembourg's online website geoportal.lu doubled, the number of page views in the "paths au topé destres" section increased by 189%, and the number of views of articles related to hiking also increased by 75.5%.

It's not just Luxembourg, there's a hiking craze going on all over the world, with the American Sports & Fitness Industry Association stating in its annual Key Participation Report that hiking was one of the top five most popular outdoor and racket sports in 2020, with the highest number of participants in the past six years.

The report shows that nearly 58 million people hike at least once a day throughout the year , and hiking ranks in the top ten activities that people will continue to participate in over the next 12 months for all age groups, from 6 to over 65, and for all income levels.

With the rise of the hiking craze, sales of hiking shoes have also been climbing . A senior sports industry consultant stated in a blog that sales of hiking shoes have increased significantly in the second half of 2020, and predicted that it will become the leading footwear in 2021.

The difference is that the target customers of hiking shoes have always been elite adventurers, but the new users who have joined this sport after the epidemic are not top users. They don’t need to compete, they just take a walk in the park near their home. Compared with those highly professional and expensive hiking shoes, they prefer a pair of basic functions and reasonably priced products.

According to surveys, these new outdoor sports customers will probably spend $80 to $100 on hiking shoes , and according to Matt Powell, senior sports industry consultant at NPD Group Inc., the five best-selling hiking shoe brands in 2020 are Merrell, Timberland, Columbia, Keen and Salomon, which are said to account for 60% of the business in this category.

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