Facilitating Factors for a Successful Agri-tourism Venture: A Principal Component Analysis

Abstract

Agritourism is an alternative farming enterprise that is defined as “a business conducted by a farm operator for the enjoyment and education of the public, to promote the products for the farm, and thereby generate additional farm income”. Agri-tourism is a subset of farm-based tourism which includes recreation, camping, participating in farm activities as well as retail, lodging, and entertainment. The present study was conducted with a sample size of forty-five agritourism hosts/operators from two states, Maharashtra and Goa, respectively, aiming at tracing out the significant factors facilitating the success of an agritourism venture. Data were collected by personal interview using summated Likert rating scale and analysed using median analysis and principal component analysis. Five different factors could finally be extracted out of 16 relatively important variables facilitating the success of an agritourism. These five factors were-Location advantage, Customer satisfaction, Resource management, Promotion and publicity and Government Support. These factors can be used as benchmarks for developing scales or indices for measuring the success of any agritourism. Moreover, the findings imply that these psycho-social and physical factors contribute to a larger extent towards the success of an agritourism venture, hence should invariably be addressed while planning any agritourism related policy at individual and mass level.