Author : Bordeesorn Phumrungruang

Summary : Agro-tourism represents two industries, namely, agriculture and tourism. The theoretical body of knowledge on agro-tourism remains undeveloped partly because of the competing terms and definitions of agro-tourism. This study aimed to analyze the agritourism system in the Northern Region of Thailand. Two government assisted and two independent agro-tourism sites were selected from a list of best performing sites ranked by the Department of Agricultural Extension and Tourism Authority. All of the owners were interviewed using a prepared interview guide about their management and strategies. A SWOT-TOWS analysis was likewise conducted with the owners. Moreover, visitors were interviewed to determine the reasons for going to the agro-tourism sites while interviews were conducted with government agencies and the local community members to determine their participation and benefits derived from the agro-tourism site.

Based from the results, the agri-focus in all sites was organic farming of different specialty crops such as grapes, passion fruit, tea, and vegetables. All of the agro-tourism sites were primarily Working Farm, Direct Contact, Staged agro-tourism (WFDCS) since most of their activities and attractions fell within these categories. To a lesser extent, they were also Working Farm, Indirect Contact agro-tourism (WFIC) and Working Farm, Passive Contact agro-tourism (WFPC) since all of them had activities classified under these categories. Experiential learning was the strategy for the visitors to understand agricultural practices and local cultures as they participate in learning technologies and processes. The owners benefited from diversification of income while the visitors derived relaxation, appreciation of agriculture and rural life, and additional knowledge about farm production and processing. The community, on the other hand, benefited from increase in employment, skills of the community members, and establishments. The proposed extension model, which is anchored on the typology of agro-tourism, strategies to promote agriculture, and the SWOT-TOWS conducted, presents specific strategies for the agricultural extension and other stakeholders to further improve the potentials of the agritourism sites to contribute to the agriculture, rural development and well-being of their customers.