Americans purchase about 50 billion plastic water bottles every year, averaging about 13 bottles per month for each person in the U.S. There's no doubt that hydration is important, but if you want to reduce waste and hit your organization's sustainability goals, encouraging hydration without the plastic waste is a smart step.

One of the top challenges for aquatic facilities is growing their membership, along with providing quality programming and facilities. Aquatic facilities that can operate and attract guests year-round, providing protection during the colder months and an open-air experience in the summer, can overcome these challenges.

As we continue to navigate the post-pandemic world, many facilities are still struggling with engaging community members in their program and class offerings. One way to deal with this challenge is to meet communities where they are: on social media.

Providing access to lockers or other spaces is useful for a wide variety of facilities, from fitness club and aquatic center locker rentals to allowing temporary access to spaces like campground cabins and more. Providing access to customers can be a challenge, though, requiring your staff to spend valuable time coding and recoding locks, helping customers who forgot their combination, or managing other unwieldy access solutions.

From day camps to fitness classes and recreation center memberships, the products and services offered through parks, recreation, sports and fitness facilities can vary. However, most share one aspect—requiring payment. An ineffective or outdated payment processing solution can present challenges for overstretched staff, and frustration for patrons. You need a system in place that will allow you to accept payments securely and efficiently.

For aquatic managers, ensuring your pool's water is properly chlorinated is one of the most important steps in keeping your pool operational and your water sparkling clear. Recently, new patent-pending high capacity erosion (HCE) technology was developed, resulting in better-performing systems for delivering calcium hypochlorite solutions, with a feeder designed for medium and large commercial swimming pools and recreational water facilities.

Whether your pool is a standard rectangular lap-style pool or a more complex lazy river, commercial pool covers can be designed specifically to meet your requirements.

Among many park agencies and other recreation organizations, concerns about staffing have seen a dramatic increase over the past year. In fact, there was a 15.8-point increase in the number of respondents to Recreation Management's Industry Report survey who said staffing issues were a top concern at their facility this year, making it the No. 1 concern in 2022.

As pool operators know, chlorine is an essential tool in ensuring pool water is safe for swimmers, as well as preventing problems with the pool itself. Chlorine protects swimmers from water-borne illnesses, and helps keep other problems like algae out of pools.

If you want guests to enjoy your site and stick around longer, you need to ensure you're providing all of the right amenities. Restrooms are an especially important consideration, and while many parks and sites turn to porta-potties, they're not always appealing to guests.