Agritourism Best Practices Guides
As of 2012, 33,000 farms integrated agritourism and recreational services such as farm or winery tours, hayrides, hunting, and fishing into their operations.
On-farm agritourism activities represent $704 million in direct tourism revenues for US farms, and likely more significant benefits for their surrounding communities and their tourism support businesses.
The USDA provided support for our project team to explore what factors influence the growth of agritourism activity in the Western US, including:
Explore the behavior and preferences of agritourism travelers in the Western US, with comparisons to a broader set of US tourists
A spatial analysis across Western state analyzing what factors may influence agritourism activity because of differences in place-based factors (natural amenities, proximity to urban areas, byways and interstates)
Develop case studies of agritourism operations to help better understand how innovations by operators encourages first-time, local and destination agritourists
Building on identified opportunities to cultivate profitable agritourism enterprises
AFRI # 2014-68006-21842