A typology for defining agritourism

Agritourism has been studied in various ways and contexts. It can be argued, however, that studies have yet to provide a clear and basic understanding of the characteristics that underpin and define agritourism. This paper proposes an original typology for defining agritourism by identifying the key characteristics currently used to define agritourism in the literature and organising them into a transparent and structured framework. For the first time, the agritourism typology clarifies and classifies definitions of agritourism that currently exist in the literature. It therefore offers a comprehensive framework that can be used as a basis for more informed debate and discussion and for future empirical research.     

The perceived benefits of agritourism: The provider’s perspective

This study examines the perceived benefits of agritourism by examining the importance of this activity in accomplishing 16 goals of farmers receiving visitors for recreation on their farms. This study also examines several farm household and business attributes associated with the accomplishment of four goal dimensions driving agritourism development. Data were derived from a survey conducted among 164 agritourism farms in Missouri. Results showed that agritourism mostly serves to capture new farm customers, educate the public about agriculture and enhance the quality of life for the farm family, which represents both, economic and non-economic benefits. Organized by goal dimensions, findings showed that agritourism is perceived as most important for market related goals, suggesting that the economic role of agritourism should not only be measured in terms of increased profits but also as a marketing tool. Four significant regression models showed that several farm business and household attributes are associated to the perceived agritourism benefits within four goal dimensions, suggesting opportunities for tailored promotional messages and policy considerations for the entrepreneurial development of agritourism.     

Diversity of offerings and consumer’s expenditure: an exploration of agritourism in China

ABSTRACT

As diversification becomes a pressing issue in China’s agritourism, extant literature provides insufficient and controversial findings on its influence. This research investigates the influence of the diversity of offerings on consumer’s expenditure, considering its interactive effects with quality and distance, by conducting analyses of hierarchical regression, multiple-linear regression and exploratory factor analysis. It is found that the diversity of offerings does not affect consumer’s expenditure alone, but interactively with quality and distance; consumer’s expenditure can be maximised with an optimal distance depending on the diversity of offerings; and there are four main business models of agritourism in China.     

Considering the role of agritourism co-creation from a service-dominant logic perspective

In recent decades, providing production and service simultaneously has remained an unsolved problem in developing agritourism. This study adopted the concept of service-dominant logic, with a service blueprint to assist entrepreneurs in designing agritourism activities that will enhance the tourists' experience within four working farm field experiments. The results showed that agritourism activities with SDL design (experiment B) did not comprehensively enhance the experience of tourists learning agricultural knowledge. The agricultural activities (i.e., experience of rural culture) (experiment C) and other tourist behaviors (i.e., tourists' mutual engagement) (experiment D) were integrated with SDL agritourism activities in order to more effectively enhance the tourists' experience of agritourism and lead to an increase in tourists' intention to revisit and actual purchase of agricultural products. Based on our findings, rural culture and tourists' mutual engagement were critical for agribusiness to integrate the specific characteristics of internal service (e.g., agritourism activities or service strategy).     

Exploring the features of agritourism and its contribution to rural development in Italy

This paper studies the features of Italian agritourism farms (agritourisms) by analysing their economic, structural and localization features, in order to examine the relations of agritourism with rural development and land use policy. The empirical analysis is based on a sample of about 11,000 farms from the Italian Farm Accountancy Data Network (Fadn) dataset. Given that agritourisms represent a minority among farms, the sample is strongly imbalanced towards farms without agritourism activities. In order to avoid the difficulties arising when analyzing imbalanced samples, we use the Random OverSampling Examples (Rose) approach that has been recently proposed in the statistical literature to obtain representative balanced samples from imbalanced ones. The empirical results show that landscape and environmental variables are important in shaping the probability that a farm runs agritourism activities. This results, together with others related to the economic dimension of the farm, its specialization, and the characteristics of the farmer make it possible to argue that there are areas of the country that can offer potential to agritourism, and that agritourism in turn can open new horizons in rural development with possible beneficial effects on the environment, the landscape, and the reduction of depopulation.     

Agritourism and off‐farm work: survival strategies for small farms

This study considers agritourism and off‐farm work as income diversification choices simultaneously and analyzes factors influencing such choices. Further, the study assesses the impact of agritourism, off‐farm work, and both on gross cash farm income and total farm household income. We utilized large set of nationwide farm survey data and selectivity‐based multinomial choice model. An important finding of our study is that small farms have higher household income if they choose both income diversification strategies rather than a single strategy. Results suggest that education, age of the operator, financial condition, and location of the farm are important factors driving income diversification alternatives. Finally, our study indicates that accounting for selectivity is essential to ensure unbiased and consistent estimates.     

Agritourism from the perspective of providers and visitors: a typology-based study

In recent decades, international studies have improved understanding of how agritourism is practiced. However, studies are founded on a range of definitions based on different combinations of key characteristics, which have been synthesised in our recent typology (Phillip, Hunter, & Blackstock, 2010). The typology provides a foundation for this study, which further develops conceptual understanding of agritourism by integrating empirical understandings of agritourism with the original typology, which was based on the literature. Our revised typology presented here incorporates three discriminating characteristics, which are fundamentally consistent with the original version: the nature of interaction between visitors and agriculture; whether the product is based on a working farm; and whether the visitor experiences authentic working agriculture. This paper makes two important contributions to the agritourism literature: 1) it integrates stakeholder perspectives to the agritourism literature; and 2) it exemplifies and examines one way that the typology can be used to underpin further agritourism research.     

宜兴市“农家乐”发展现状及对策研究

随着宜兴市乡村旅游的发展,＂农家乐＂作为其主要载体,也呈现出强劲的发展势头,本文以实地调研和问卷调查数据为基础,对宜兴市＂农家乐＂进行行业分析,经营现状分析,并提出发展建议。     

The assessment of agritourism policy based on SEA combination with HIA

The decline in agricultural and other forms of rural employment in many countries has created a need for a diversified range of rural businesses. In most cases, agritourism has become an important element of the diverse activities in rural areas of Taiwan. However, there are a number of significant impacts from tourism activities that can be influenced by agritourism policy.Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a procedural tool to assess policies and can aid the development of more sustainable policy formulation. However, SEA aims to assess environmental impacts; the health issues are often overlooked. Hence, a Delphi-Indicator approach to SEA is proposed here to integrate Health Impact Assessment (HIA). This new approach is based on the impact indicator system, and then the Delphi method is employed to collect experts’ opinions. After the evaluation system was established, the current agritourism policy and another alternative policy are assessed to examine this new method.Finally, various types of impacts from current agritourism policy in Taiwan are identified, and the significant impacts are as follows: resources usage (water, electricity, petroleum), pollution generation (waste, noise), and other landscape problems (mudflows and landslide, harmony of the rural landscape). In addition, several benefits are found from the alternative policy (agro-ecotourism) such as the amount of pesticides used per unit area, and environmental quality of local community since agro-ecotourism development is based on organic agriculture and combination with ecotourism to provide acceptable recreation opportunity without destroying natural rural environment. In summary, the impacts are less significant from agro-ecotourism than those from current agritourism policy, and these positive changes are not only in the environmental sector, but also within the economic, social, and health issues.     

Broadening the utilitarian epistemology of agritourism research through children and families

ABSTRACT

The genesis of agritourism is rooted in diversifying income for farmers, and accordingly, epistemological framing of agritourism research has focused on understanding the direct economic value of farm visits. The literature has identified multiple measures of tourism values and we propose that a similar broad epistemological perspective is needed to expand the analysis of the full spectrum of benefits that agritourism can provide to farmers and food systems. We describe the potential, yet unmeasured, benefits of agritourism and propose to empirically examine the educational and marketing potential of agritourism through building agricultural literacy among young visitors and encouraging family-level support of local food systems. We offer this as one example of how to expand of the epistemological approach to agritourism research, which will allow for a more holistic account of its benefits.