Agritourism, Wine Tourism, and Craft Beer Tourism

Local Responses to Peripherality Through Tourism Niches

Maria Giulia Pezzi, Alessandra Faggian, Neil Reid, Maria Giulia Pezzi, Alessandra Faggian, Neil Reid

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429874628
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Negocios y empresa
• Categoría: Agronegocios

This book delves into the development opportunities for peripheral areas explored through the emerging practices of agritourism, wine tourism, and craft beer tourism. It celebrates the entrepreneurial spirit of people living in peri-urban regions.

Peripheral areas tend to be far from urban hubs, providing essential services but also typically suffering from marginalisation and remoteness, despite the access to environmental, cultural, and social resources. In this sense, this book investigates the linkages between local agency and tourism in peripheral areas, the role of existing policies, and the evolving bottom-up practices in fostering local development. The basic aim is to disestablish the dichotomies that often emerge when dealing with issues of rural–urban and/or centre–periphery relationships; innovation vs tradition; authenticity vs mise en scène; agency vs inertia; and social, cultural, economic mobility vs immobility; etc. With focused attention on the possible compliance or conflicting strategies of local actors with the existing policies, the book considers how local actors and communities respond to the implications of peripherality in areas often impacted by marginalising processes.

Drawing upon case studies from North America and Europe, this book presents this connection as a global phenomenon which will be of interest to community and economic development planners and entrepreneurs.

Part I

Agritourism

1 Targeting agritourism to leverage the unique natural resources base and heritage of the rural west

Anders Van Sandt, Dawn Thilmany, and Rebecca Hill

Examining the intersection of rural entrepreneurship opportunities and tourism behavior is timely given the increasing share of the US farms with agritourism enterprises. Motivated by past research showing place-based factors are significant drivers, this chapter frames the role of location in agritourism differentiation strategies. To highlight the interesting spatial aspects that may attract agritourists and the potential role of agritourism as a rural development driver, both case studies and survey data are used to illustrate how demand may vary among travelers in various regions of the Western US, with a particular focus on four different types of agritourism activities: direct to consumer sales, education, entertainment/events and outdoor recreation. To conclude, there is also a discussion of how either entrepreneurs or collaboratives of operators can strategically leverage their tourism development activities recognizing their own community’s assets.

Agricultural-based rural tourism, more commonly labeled as “agritourism,” is becoming a popular form of outdoor and heritage-based recreation in the US. This growth follows the lead of Europe and other parts of the world that find agritourism’s linkages to culture, food and heritage to be a draw for visitors. Between 2002 and 2012, the number of agritourism establishments has grown by 42% in the US according to the US Census of Agriculture (USDA), and this growth can be connected to an overall increased demand for outdoor recreation. A recent USDA-funded survey indicates that around 8% of the adult population of the US participated in agritourism in the Western US, which could be extrapolated to estimate that there are 19 million annual agritourists in the US (based on US Census population statistics).

For this chapter, we assume that agritourism encompasses a diverse set of activities including you-pick-pumpkin patches, corn mazes, farmers markets, dude ranches, on-farm wineries and breweries along with events such as farm dinners and on-farm weddings. Since American agriculture and the rural communities that rely on the agricultural sector have undergone a major structural shift (Hoppe, 2014), there has been an increasing focus on enterprise diversification activities, including regional food systems and agritourism, that allow rural areas to capture more economic returns from those in urban areas interested in agriculture (Low et al., 2015; Van Sandt et al., 2018b). Past research explored producers’ motivations for adopting agritourism, its economic impacts, as well as the overall demand for agritourism across the US. As a way to explore the managerial implications and competitive strategies that may be most effective for rural entrepreneurs focused on agritourism economic development strategies, this chapter explores both data from a travel cost model of visitors to the Western US and some specific case studies of communities that are leveraging the drivers discovered by the research. The overall goal of the chapter is to evaluate and compare the relative demand and elasticities for a variety of agritourism enterprises in the US, with a particular focus on how place matters, and opportunities to differentiate one’s regional opportunities to travelers across a variety of peripheral areas.

Agritourism and rural development in the US

In the US, there is an increasing interest in rural economic development and specifically the roles that economic sectors that complement traditional base industries (such as farming and forestry) can play in the sustainable development of rural areas. Agritourism is one clear example. In addition to providing a diversification strategy that might supplement and smooth production income for US farmers, visitors to agritourism operations bring money to other businesses in rural communities. In short, the community development potential is also notable since visitors create economic impacts through their expenditures on lodging, dining, gas and other recreational expenditures while visiting the rural host community, and it follows that agritourism development strategies should be considered at the regional level.

Agritourism can be seen as an important asset in rural economic development, but by its very nature, the potential success of agritourism as a rural development tool is dependent on the unique geographical context of the rural community. A key example of this is the linkage between heritage tourism and agritourism, which can offer complementary experiences for travelers (Walden et al., 2013). For example, part of the Western US is known for its cowboy culture as well as its open spaces and scenic public lands, so it is logical that visitors to agritourism operations in that region may find higher value in activities that build on an experience that leverages these perceptions of regional heritage.

Agritourism is a unique form of rural entrepreneurship that is linked to a region’s existing natural resource, economic and cultural base. Research has shown the important linkages between rural entrepreneurship, economic growth and rural poverty rates (Rupasingha and Goetz, 2013; Stephens and Partridge, 2011). Existing research on rural entrepreneurship has noted the important factors that enable a community to be able to make improvements in their wellbeing through entrepreneurship, together with the understanding that a community’s existing natural capital is linked to their ability to improve their economic wellbeing (McGranahan et al., 2011). These linkages indicate that rural entrepreneurship has important policy implications and is an important tool in sustainable rural economic development initiatives. Still, there are differing views on the role of agritourism in community development outcomes. While some research has shown that rural tourism development has direct links to physical attributes of a region such as natural resources and amenities (Gartner, 2005), it may be that agritourism just as fully relies on adjacency to major transportation and population centers. It is likely that both play an important role, and in differing degrees, depending on the geographical region; so, place-based strategies are appropriate. One recent finding in the literature highlights agritourism’s connection to place-based factors, including natural amenities and community assets. Evidence suggests that agritourism may be a complement to other types of outdoor recreation and tourism assets including National Parks Service lands (Van Sandt et al., 2018a, 2018b).

It appears that agricultural operators are more likely to adopt agritourism if they are located near a scenic byway, indicating that they are aware of the economic opportunities presented by the nearby flow of travelers seeking to explore a region (rather than taking freeways that offer more direct, efficient travel times). While some agritourism operations may be dependent on their proximity to urban markets or the flow of travelers passing through the area, Van Sandt et al. (2018a) also find evidence of agglomeration economies, indicating that individual agritourism establishments benefit from being located in a cluster of other agritourism businesses.

Data on past behavior of Western US agritourists

To develop a data-driven case study that could better inform those framing management strategies and policies to support agritourism development, a team of researchers from Colorado State University, University of California – Davis, University of Northern Colorado and the USDA Economic Research service secured a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant, “Place-Based Innovation: An Integrated Look at Agritourism in the Western U.S.” in 2014. One goal of the project was to work with a national research organization to secure a rich dataset focused on agritourism travelers and to find trends in their past travel behavior (revealed preferences), while also soliciting information on a variety of preferences for future agritourism-related travel (stated preferences).

The traveler information was collected through an internet-based survey distributed by Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) in late April 2015. The survey used existing TNS participant panels to create a stratified regional and national sample of travelers, with a focus on agritourist to the Western Region, which included Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Texas, as well as all states contiguous westward (Hawaii and Alaska were excluded). There were several benefits of coll...