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The Role of Agritourism Farms’ Characteristics

on the Performance: A Case Study of Agritourism
Farm in South Korea

Hyungsuk Choo & Duk-Byeong Park

To cite this article: Hyungsuk Choo & Duk-Byeong Park (2020): The Role of Agritourism
Farms’ Characteristics on the Performance: A Case Study of Agritourism Farm in
South Korea, International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration, DOI:
10.1080/15256480.2020.1769520

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15256480.2020.1769520

Published online: 01 Jun 2020.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOSPITALITY & TOURISM ADMINISTRATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/15256480.2020.1769520

The Role of Agritourism Farms’ Characteristics on the

Performance: A Case Study of Agritourism Farm in South
Korea
Hyungsuk Chooa and Duk-Byeong Parkb
a
Tourism, Hospitality, and Event Management, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH;
b
Department of Community Development, Kongju National University, Chungnam, Republic of Korea

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

A growing number of farms have adopted multiple non- Received 1 October 2019
agricultural activities beyond the agricultural production in Revised 25 March 2020
order to increase the household sales and to benefit society. Accepted 27 March 2020
Agritourism is one of the most popular activities, presenting an KEYWORDS
alternative use of farm resources. This study examines agritour- Agritourism; farm
ism farms’ characteristics and financial and managerial characteristics; performance;
resources, that are positively related to the performance. south Korea
Using the data collected from 196 farms involving agritourism
in South Korea, this study found that the length of time in
business, the number of employees, the type of tourism pro-
gram, availability of attractions, availability of financial
resource, and availability of business/marketing plan have
a positive impact on the performance of agritourism farms.
Other characteristics, including acres owned/farmed, availabil-
ity of educational programs, availability of external support of
finance, availability of external support of business/marketing,
and availability of financial benefit didn’t have a significant
relationship on the performance of these agritourism farms.

Introduction
More and more small farms have sought to find non-agricultural activities
beyond the agricultural production in order to increase economic and social
benefits (McGehee, 2007). Those activities, termed as farm diversification,
can include a variety of forms, e.g., less traditional livestock and non-food
crops production, green energy generation, on-farm stand, tourism and so
on. The relative importance of those activities varies geographically between
sectors but tourism is commonly adopted across the regions as one of the
most popular activities (Barbieri et al., 2008; Carpio et al., 2008). Small
farmers often prefer tourism over other diversification activities due to
both the perceived extra benefits of working from home while being able
to take care of children and the possibility of generating extra income
(Sharpley & Vass, 2006). Tourism on the farm, often called as agritourism

CONTACT Hyungsuk Choo hchoo@bgsu.edu Tourism, Hospitality, and Event Management, Bowling Green
State University, 113 Eppler S, Bowling Green, OH 43402
© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 H. CHOO AND D.-B. PARK

(hereafter agritourism) is also known to provide opportunities to be an

avenue for direct marketing of their agricultural products to consumers
(Veeck et al., 2006) and to counteract social and economic problems – loss
of sales, increased expenses, globalization, and others – associated with the
decline of traditional agriculture industries (McGehee, 2007).
Despite the benefits and viability of agritourism as a farm diversification
strategy, the scope of research in this topic has limited to the benefits and
motivation of farmers, without sufficient information on the performance
(Sharpley, 2007). Little is known about how successful agritourism farms are
and what factors influence the performance of tourism activities from farm-
ers’ perspective. This is partly because of the difficulty receiving information
on tourism revenue from farmers (Busby & Rendle, 2000). Farmers do not
often prefer to give out their revenue information, and/or can’t readily
separate tourism revenue from the total gross revenue.
This study aims to identify characteristics of agritourism farms that are
positively related to the performance. Jovo (2007) emphasized that agritourism
farms have a number of factors (e.g., nature of tourism business, locality, and
specific business environment) that need to be acknowledged, in addition to
some common characteristics found in general small businesses. Agritourism
farms often involve tourism business as well as farming and their personal goal
overlaps with the goal of tourism business (Park et al., 2014, 2012). Therefore,
understanding characteristics of agritourism farms that are related to the per-
formance can be a good approach to provide more practical information on the
performance to agritourism farmers (Carlsen et al., 2001).
In the agritourism literature, one of the earlier studies in this topic conducted
by Barbieri and Mshenga (2008) examined the relationship between agritourism
farm characteristics and the performance, but the performance indicator used in
their study was the farm total gross sales, which included the entire annual
production of all on-farm businesses as well as agriculture production. Similarly,
later studies also adopted the gross household income, (Hung et al., 2016; Joo
et al., 2013; Khanal & Mishra, 2014; Park et al., 2014) in order to identify the
relationship between farm characteristics and the performance of agritourism
among farms diversified into tourism. The gross farm income does not always
reflect the detail of the direct sales received from tourism activities. Moreover,
the previous literature on the economic performance of agritourism provides
contrasting results. The role of the direct sales generated from tourism activities
is found to be significant for some agritourism farms, but to other farms the
contribution of tourism activities is only indirect to the farm gross income
mostly from additional sales of agricultural products (Barbieri & Tew, 2010).
Hence, additional research is needed to investigate the direct sales of agritourism
and farm characteristics influencing those.
Although agritourism is of growing importance in many Asian countries,
the agritourism literature has predominantly highlighted Europe and North
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOSPITALITY & TOURISM ADMINISTRATION 3

America (Yinga & Zhou, 2007). This study fills this gap by drawing on a case
study of a group of small scale agritourism farms in South Korea. This
manuscript commences with an overview of agritourism farms in South
Korea, the performance of agritourism farms, and their characteristics influ-
encing the performance. The method section that follows contains a case
study of 196 agritourism farms to develop the regression model of the
performance. Case study results are presented, followed by a discussion of
agritourism farms and characteristics important for their performance.

Literature Review
In the past decades, farmers begun to recognize the multiple contributions of
agriculture beyond the traditional food production. No longer sustained by
the sale of traditional crops and livestock that have provided a flat net
income for years, farmers have sought to diversify their economic activities
beyond the traditional farming (Kirschenmann, 2003). As agriculture has
multiple functions and a profound impact on the rural landscape, local and
global economy, community development, and agricultural ecosystem, there
are many diversification activities which can be adopted by farmers (Butler &
Flora, 2006). Of these activities, diversification into tourism has been pre-
valent as a way to realize economic and social benefits that open new
horizons in rural development with possible beneficial effects on the envir-
onment, the landscape, and the reduction of depopulation (Lupi et al., 2017).
Over the past decades, agritourism farms have dramatically increased in
numbers locally and globally, receiving increasing attention with respect to
its conservation potential (Liu et al., 2017).
In general, the primary reason for the recent emergence of agritourism can
be found from the supply side, but the recent popularity of agritourism could
not have occurred without market demand (McGehee & Kim, 2004).
Discretionary income and increased need for more specialized forms of vaca-
tion experiences have driven the growth of tourism and recreational activity in
a rural farming environment (Tchetchik et al., 2008). Agritourism also meets
the needs of urban tourists who seek traditional hospitality, nature and cultural
experiences, peace and tranquility, thematic holidays, authenticity, healthful-
ness, and so on (Chang, 2003). These drivers, in combination with better
access to rural destinations, have made agritourism popular for a growing
number of farmers, the farming community, and the tourism industry.
The main force of agritourism development varies country to country as it
can be from the government, the cooperative-community movement, and/or
a private enterprise. In Korea, it is the government to recognize the potential
role of tourism in some rural areas as part of the revitalization of declining
rural areas (Choo & Jamal, 2009). In 1984, the pilot project of 12 agritourism
communities was initiated under the support of the Special Act on Farm and
4 H. CHOO AND D.-B. PARK

Fishery Villages Development, followed by a series of subsequent govern-

ment-led projects (Hong et al., 2003). Some examples are Tourism Sales
Source Development Project of Rural Area in 1989 and Homestay Village
Project in 1991, but many of those were not successful after the end of
government support (Park & Yoon, 2009). Therefore, the projects started
in the early 2000 s emphasized community-based development, instead of the
government-led approach. These later projects, using the concept of green
tourism, focused on the development of hand-on farm experience programs
and preservation of the local culture, tradition, and natural farming environ-
ment (Hong et al., 2003). Many farms in the later projects were found to
build and expand the market of both day visitation and overnight stays but
their financial performance shown as the feasibility, efficiency, or profitability
has not been achieved or not evaluated at all. As most of those farms have
recently become independent without the government support, the issue of
performance to sustain their operation is critical (Choo et al., 2016).
Although sales and income generation has been found to be a primary
motivation for the development of agritourism farms (Giaccio et al., 2018), the
literature on the economic performance of agritourism is inconclusive
(Barbieri & Tew, 2010). A study conducted in New Jersey found the positive
role of agritourism in the economic performance of the farms, suggesting small
farmers were found to receive the higher profit than lifestyle farms or larger
farms (Schilling et al., 2014). Similarly, another study conducted in Michigan
concluded the positive economic contribution of agritourism to rural and peri-
urban regions (Veeck et al., 2016). In the comparison of performance with
other farm diversification strategies, agritourism was also found to be more
economically successful than other strategies (Barbieri, 2013).
Some studies have found, perhaps paradoxically, that agritourism sales
tend to be relatively insubstantial or only minimal (Busby & Rendle, 2000;
Hjalager, 1996; Koutsouris et al., 2014; Oppermann, 1996; Sharpley, 2007).
A study conducted in Cumbria County, UK reported an insignificant eco-
nomic impact of agritourism specially for small farmers (Maude & Van Rest,
1985). Tew and Barbieri’s study (2012) also found that agritourism did not
contribute to farm sales in a majority of agritourism farms in Missouri when
direct marketing was excluded as a subset of agritourism. Nevertheless,
agritourism is still important for the continued operation of their farm in
Missouri because of its cross-marketing value of farm products from tourism
and recreational activities (Barbieri & Tew, 2010). Using the data from
a state-wide economic impact in New Jersey (Schilling et al., 2016) uncovered
that a significant percentage of farms hosting agritourism were found to earn
no immediate sales from such activities. Therefore, their study suggested that
some farmers may be motivated by either nonmonetary or deferred eco-
nomic benefits from hosting agritourism.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOSPITALITY & TOURISM ADMINISTRATION 5

Inconclusive or contrasting result of the economic performance in agritour-

ism might come from inconsistent measurement of economic performance
(Barbieri & Mshenga, 2008). Some scholars adopted the farm total gross sales,
(Joo et al., 2013; Khanal & Mishra, 2014) which do not directly reflect the sales
portion received from agritourism activities. Many farmers are engaged with
a variety of on-and off-farm businesses, so it is common that they receive sales
and income from multiple sources (Barbieri, 2013). Therefore, other agritour-
ism performance scholars have considered the revenue only coming from
agritourism activities (Chase et al., 2018). Nevertheless, inconsistency on the
extent of agritourism activities still generates incomparable agritourism rev-
enue across studies. For example, the direct sales of agricultural products are
found to be a subset of agritourism revenue in some studies while not in other
studies (Chase et al., 2018, pp. 16, Tew, Barbieri, 2012). Inconclusive or
contrasting literature on the economic performance of agritourism can also
imply that the economic benefits of agritourism are not universal. The eco-
nomic performance may vary based on several factors, internal or external,
such as the length of time they have been in tourism, closeness to other
tourism attractions, or the intensity of their offerings (Busby & Rendle, 2000;
Fleischer & Pizam, 1997; Saxena et al., 2007; Veeck et al., 2006). Therefore,
identifying the factors that may influence the financial performance is impor-
tant in this type of farm diversification activity.
The previous literature discussed that small businesses are unique in some
ways, such as individual motivation and informality, and are often con-
strained by ineffective marketing strategies, lack of capital, inadequate equip-
ment, lack of improved technology, inadequate training and so on (Haber &
Reichel, 2005; Jovo, 2007). According to the resource-based theory of busi-
ness performance, the nature and extent of businesses’ resources fundamen-
tally influence the competitive advantage and, as a result, its performance
(Rangone, 1999). In the small business, the nature and extent of resources
can be conceptually defined by several concepts or practically described by
a range of characteristics specific to each business sector. Using the latter, this
study identifies those characteristics of agritourism farms contributing to
performance.

Method and Data Set

The target of the study is 357 agritourism farms that have officially worked
with Rural Development Administration (RDA) under the Ministry of
Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs of Korea. After removing 82 farms
engaged with tourism less than a year, 275 farms were invited for this
study. On-going partnership and its consequent relationship between these
agritourism farmers and researchers at RDA were very helpful in conducting
e-mail and site visit surveys between July and October 2012. As a result, 242
6 H. CHOO AND D.-B. PARK

were returned with an 88% response rate. Among those, 196 were retained
for further analysis without 46 surveys with insufficient information on their
annual sales.
The independent variables used in this study included farm business and
owner characteristics related to business performance which was suggested
by Barbieri and Mshenga (2008). A self-administered survey was developed,
consisting a set of questions about the characteristics of agritourism farm,
e.g., such as the type of tourism business, the number of years in tourism,
support from government and community, managerial behavior, business
performance, and demographic information. A Likert-type scale of 1:
strongly disagree, to 5: strongly agree was adopted for questions about
support from government and community and managerial behavior. In
addition, the multiple choice or open-ended questions were adopted for the
rest questions, the type of tourism business, the number of years in business,
and the performance.
Data were analyzed in two steps: descriptive statistics and regression
analysis. Descriptive statistics were conducted to provide the sample profile,
along with some preliminary check for the statistical assumption of regres-
sion model. These farms are located in Gyeonggi Province (46 farms),
Kangwon Province (42 farms), Gyeongsangnam-do Province (34 farms),
Junrabuk-do Province (27 farms), and Gyeongsangbuk-do Province (19
farms) in Korea. Four other Provinces in Korea have 28 farms. The primary
age group of the respondents was 50–59 (40.8%), followed by 40–49 (35.7%).
As Table 1 shows, a majority of respondents were male. About 76% of the
respondents were between 30 and 49 of age range and more than 66%
graduated middle or high school. The average years in agriculture is 12,
while farms have engaged in tourism activities for 2.6 years.
In the step two of analysis, sequential multiple regression analyses were
conducted to find out whether significant relationships exist between char-
acteristics of agritourism farms and their annual sales.

Result of Regression Analysis

Performance is indicated by the annual sales exclusively from tourism busi-
ness without sales from farming. As shown in Table 1, a majority of agri-
tourism farms (58.9%) reported less than 20,000 USD of gross sales, whereas
nearly one-third (29.2%) indicated sales of 30,000 USD or more.
A multiple regression model predicting the performance of agritourism
farms from a set of their characteristics was found to be statistically significant.
As shown in R2 (Table 2), the predictors of characteristics of agritourism farms
accounted for 41% of the variability in the annual sales. The values of variance
influence factor (VIF) for variables parameters, the tests of the extent of multi-
collinearity, were small between 1.008 and 1.738 (Table 2). These values
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOSPITALITY & TOURISM ADMINISTRATION 7

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of 196 tourism farms.

Demographic characteristics Frequency (%)
Gender Male 113 (57.7)
Female 83 (42.3)
Education Elementary 38 (19.4)
Middle school 61 (31.1)
High school 70 (35.7)
College 24 (12.2)
Post graduate work started/completed 3 (1.5)
Location (Province) Gyeonggi-Do 46 (23.5)
Kangwon-Do 42 (21.4)
Gyeongsangnam-Do 34 (17.3)
Junrabuk-Do 27 (13.8)
Gyeongsangbuk-DO 19 (9.7)
Others 28 (14.3)
Age 20–29 8 (4.1)
30-39 21(10.7)
40–49 70 (35.7)
50-59 80 (40.8)
60+ 17 (8.7)
Tourism program type Educational program 110 (56.1)
Educational program, and Farm stay 32 (16.3)
Educational program, Farm stay, and Restaurant 27 (13.8)
Farm stay and Experience program 10 (5.1)
Experience program and Restaurant 9 (4.6)
Experience program 8 (4.1)
Gross Sales of agritourism Less than $10,000.00 82 (42.2)
$10,001 – $20,000 33 (16.8)
$20,001 – $30,000 24 (12.2)
Greater than $30,000 57(29.2)

indicated that there was no significant evidence of multicollinearity problem in

the model. For the autocorrelation, the Durbin-Watson statistic was used to
detect if error terms of the model is correlated. Because the values of Durbin-
Watson statistics exceeded the critical value (DW = 1.799, p < .05), this
suggested no substantial autocorrelation of residual.
Those characteristics showing significant impacts on performance are years
of business (B = 0.26, p < .01), the number of employees (B = 0.17, p < .01), the
types of agritourism programs (B = 0.31, p < .01), availability of attractions
(B = 0.19, p < .01), availability of financial resource (B = 0.16, p < .05),
availability of partnership (B = 0.25, p < .05), and availability of business/
marketing plan (B = 0.11, p < .01).The values of VIF for varables substantia

Discussion
This study identifies characteristics of agritourism farms that are positively
related to performance, using a case study in South Korea. The result of
multiple regression analysis found that the availability of attractions around
agritourism farms is positively related to their agritourism sales. This shows the
importance of collaboration with neighbor attractions for the development of
8 H. CHOO AND D.-B. PARK

Table 2. Multiple Regression Analysis of 196 Agritourism Farms.

Annual sales from tourism
Variance
Beta Standard influence factor
Independent Variable Coefficient Error (VIF)
Years of business 0.26** 2.27 1.501
Open-ended question
Type of agritourism program: Farm stay; Education program, 0.31** 4.90 1.773
Experience program; Food/restaurant; Farm stand/product
sales; Others
Multiple choice question
Number of employees 0.17** 2.20 1.634
Open-ended question
Acres owned and farmed −0.08 0.39
Open-ended question
Availability of near attractions 0.19** 8.11 1.008
Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)
Availability of financial resource 0.16* 1.89 1.700
Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)
Availability of business/marketing plan 0.21** 2.18 1.738
Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)
Availability of educational programs on tourism 0.10 0.99 1.009
Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)
Availability of partnership 0.25* 1.99 1.411
Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)
Availability of external support: finance 0.19 0.65 1.200
Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)
Availability of external support: business/marketing plan 0.17 0.32 1.241
Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)
Availability of financial benefit (e.g., tax exempt) 0.09 0.21 1.111
Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)
R2 0.41
F-Value 2.31 p < .005
Durbin-Watson 1.799
*P < 0.05, ** p < 0.01

agritourism farms, consistent with the previous literature emphasizing the co-
development, clustering or bundling in the rural tourism (Di Domenico &
Miller, 2012; Huang et al., 2016). Sharpley (2007) further argued that the
development of large, purpose-built attractions can represent a viable means
of achieving sustainable rural development. Rural tourism attractions, includ-
ing agritourism farms, are often fragmented and remote with limited appeal
and demand to be a primary attraction, so the large, purpose-built attractions
are needed to generate the sustainable level of demand to that area. The results
of analysis also show that the availability of partnership with other farms or
other services positively influences the annual sales of agritourism farms.
According to tourism scholars, the intrinsic nature of tourism involving
a range of services together explicitly demonstrate itself the importance of
collaboration and partnership (Clarke, 1995, 1999), and this study reveals the
impact of those can be on performance of agritourism farms. Although the
nature of collaboration and partnership, e.g., type, and size, required for the
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOSPITALITY & TOURISM ADMINISTRATION 9

development of agritourism farms is not given, this study suggests that attrac-
tion and partnership with other farms and other services are some of key
aspects in the collaboration of agritourism development. For example, agri-
tourism farms can be part of local itineraries that include other agritourism
experiences, nearby hotels and resorts, tourism bureaus, and nearby businesses
of restaurants, souvenir shops, and others. Agritourism farms can also benefit
from partnership with outdoor recreation businesses, such as fishing, hiking,
bird-watching, and so on. Rural areas have great resources for many of these
activities and they just need to be combined to be marketed and presented
together for their potential customers.
Agritourism farms in Korea provide a variety of programs, such as farm
stay, educational program, experience program, restaurant, farm-stand, others
and combination of those, and these were found to positively affect the farm
performance. The most common program provided at farms is educational
program, followed by farm stay and experience program (Table 1). A majority
of farms (56.1%) solely dedicated to education program. More than one third
of farms offered more two programs: 16.3% of agritourism farms with educa-
tional program and farm stay, 13.8% with educational program and restaurant,
and 5.1% with farm stay and restaurant. Lastly, about 4.1% of the farms offer
experience program. Measuring the contribution of each program to annual
sales may not be the most appropriate way to assess their role as the amount of
unit sales of each program is significantly different. However, this information
may be useful for agritourism farmers to choose their program depending on
their sales goal.
In terms of the length of time in tourism business and the number of
employees, both were found to be significant as already recognized in the
previous studies suggesting that the size (number of employees) and the
length in business are interrelated aspects of annual sales (Rangone, 1999).
Agritourism farms that have been in business longer often benefit from the
economies of scale through experience in management and marketing.
Order, Hogartth-Scott, and Riding (2000) in their study about the perfor-
mance between small and micro businesses also suggested that the positive
relationship between the number of employees and the performance and
growth performance is clearer, particularly among micro businesses having
the number of employees less than 50.
Greater annual sales tended to be agritourism farms relying on business/
marketing plan, indicating the performance follows from the decision
makers’ intentional actions. Different from conventional large business
where formal strategic planning is inherently important, the role of formal
strategic planning in the small business has been arguable in the literature.
Small businesses are different from large business in that informality, lack of
marketing/management resource, individual motivation. Accordingly, some
studies argue that small businesses do not typically have a long-term strategy
10 H. CHOO AND D.-B. PARK

or formal decision-making process (Rangone, 1999; Schwenk & Shrader,

1993). Yet, this study supports the role of business/marketing plan among
agritourism farms – planning clearly associated with performance of agri-
tourism farms (Orser et al., 2000). Getz and Nilsson (2004) argued that, in
the rural tourism, lifestyle entrepreneurs whose primary goal of business is
beyond economic benefits are prevalent (Donlad Getz & Carlsen, 2000), and
they have their own unique style of managerial practices, which might be
different from typical small or micro businesses.
As generally expected, this study confirms the positive role of financial
resources in the performance. Financial resources seem obviously impor-
tant in the business, but the previous study didn’t always find its positive
role in the performance. For example, Barbieri and Mshenga (2008) didn’t
find the significant role of financial resources in the gross income of farms
involving tourism. Those included in their study, compared to agritourism
farms in this study which were are smaller and still in the very early stage
(Farming: 6 years; tourism: 2.7 years; the number of full-time employee:
.70), had 22 years of average operating age of the farms and three full-time
employees per farm. Therefore, our findings can be explained from the
previous study in small businesses suggesting that the positive role of
financial resources in the performance is more evident particularly when
businesses are in the earlier stage and smaller. Therefore, the role of
financial resources in the performance of agritourism farms needs to be
examined further in terms of the size and the length of business specific to
the characteristics of a group of farms.
Other characteristics, including acres owned/farmed (B = −0.08, p > .10),
availability of educational programs (B = 0.10, p > .05), availability of external
support of finance (B = 0.19, p > .05), availability of external support of business/
marketing (B = 0.17, p > .05),, and availability of financial benefit (B = 0.10,
p > .05) didn’t have a significant relationship on the performance of these
agritourism farms (Table 2). This study shows the performance of agritourism
farms is not directly associated with their access to external support (i.e., finance,
business/marketing plan, and educational program). However, these results need
to be interpreted with caution before confirming an insignificant role of external
support in agritourism performance. This study focused on the agritourism
farms which had worked with the government agencies for a range of external
support. For them, external support might not be the most appropriate, dis-
cernable characteristics of agritourism farms to examine their performance.

Limitations and Further Research

Further research is needed to discuss performance indicators of agritourism.
Different from the previous studies which used the farm gross sales to
examine the performance of tourism, this study adopted the net farm sales
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOSPITALITY & TOURISM ADMINISTRATION 11

directly from agritourism activities. But, in order to correctly and consis-

tently measure performance of agritourism, agritourism and its subset activ-
ities should be clearly defined and discussed between researchers and
practitioners. In this study, sales from direct marketing (e.g., farm stand,
direct sales, and so on) were not considered to be part of tourism sales
because, in the farmers’ mind, they belong to the farm product sales that they
usually or primarily have. In the agritourism literature, the direct marketing
of farm products has been recognized as one of the most significant eco-
nomic benefits of agritourism (Tew & Barbieri, 2012), but it appears that the
role of tourism in that activity is mostly indirect in reality (Sharpley & Vass,
2006). Farmers do not always readily identify the agritourism activities,
although they are familiar with the term, agritourism. Therefore, a clear
definition of agritourism and its subset activities is necessary for
a consistent result of agritourism performance that researchers and practi-
tioners can compare each other.
This study used the convenient sampling from a case study involving
a group of agritourism farms which had worked with the government agency
(i.e., Rural Development Administration), so the result of the study can’t be
applied to other agritourism farms in general. Sample representing agritour-
ism farms nation-wide in Korea or other countries can provide more accu-
rate data on agritourism performance. In addition, a nation-wide inventory
of agritourism farms is needed to keep track of the on-going status of
performance and to develop a two-way communication channel between
farmers and agricultural agencies.

References
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between agritourism and other farm entrepreneurial ventures. Journal of Sustainable
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