Analysis of selected accommodation conditions at agritourism farms based on the method of classification trees

A comparative analysis, using the classification tree method, of typically agritourism and agriculturally inactive farms has been conducted in this paper. An interview questionnaire, carried out on 78 farms, has been applied as a research tool.According to the research, typically agritourism farms evaluated the quality of their own services more positively. However, these factors did not influence the improvement of offer standards. Perhaps they had to invest more often in the development of farms rather than focus on improving the sanitary and hygiene infrastructure. The residential buildings may have not been adapted to undergo redevelopment in that respect.Agriculturally inactive households rarely broadened their knowledge in order to improve accommodation conditions. They had higher standards regardless of the level of hosts' qualifications. Presumably, hosts who focus mainly on agritourism are more likely to improve accommodation conditions. They basically do not have to pay expenses that would be incurred by agricultural activity.The application of the classification tree method has allowed to observe that high self-evaluation of services provided does not always have to result in better sanitary equipment of rooms or possession of living rooms. The method has made it possible to present the examined factors in a simple graphical manner, thus ...

An analysis of contemporary trends in the agritourism market in Poland

The degree of future development of agritourism will be strongly influenced by fashion trends that are dictated by the contemporary market. Changing lifestyles of the society, which manifest themselves in the pursuit of buying greener products and seeking unconventional ways of spending free time will further develop this service. Continuous improvement of service offers and introduction of more interesting forms of recreation that guarantee higher quality of services should become key goals for individuals involved in agritourism. The potential of agritourism is slowly being recognized, although in comparison to other forms of accommodation, still a rather small number of Polish tourists choose it. There is therefore a necessity to develop a marketing plan to make agritourism services more distinguishable on the local and foreign tourism markets. In order for rural areas to develop and to provide rural communities with additional sources of income, it undoubtedly seems necessary to differentiate between rural tourism and agritourism.     ...

Names used for creating the image of rural tourist accommodation facilities

Studies conducted among 1417 rural tourist accommodation facilities in Poland have shown that 966 of them have names for their service. Created names most often correspond to the profile of the business. A total of 130 objects specifically suggested that their product is the agritourism, using less sophisticated terms: agritourism, agritourism farm, gite, or expanding it by an additional element, usually referring to the owner's name or surname, plants (clover) or the location of the facility (e.g. in a valley or on a peninsula). There were also names of rural tourism facilities which suggested surroundings of the homestead ("Kraina trzech stawów") or accentuated its regional affiliation ("Czar Roztocza"). Owners often used their names to promote the tourism product for example: "U Basi", U Zochy", "U Kazika" or "U Kowalskich". They were not innovative, as in the case of the names created of parts of owners' names or surnames for example: "Czester". 451 services on the web portal did not have any names, which may cause that their offer will not remain for long in the minds of the potential customers, or will not be noticed at all. It must be emphasized that giving proper, attractive and easy to ...

THE ROLE OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES IN AGRITOURIST ECONOMY

The study shows an analysis of renewable energy sources in terms of their use in agritourist farms. The conducted survey aimed at finding out whether it was the respondents' age, farm size or incomes obtained from different sources that had the biggest impact on decisions to invest in ecological energy media. An answer was provided to the question whether implementation of ecological energy systems was followed by significant reduction in agritourist activity costs. The level of interest in such energy media among farmers who do not use them was assessed. The attitude of agritourist service providers toward more effective utilization of natural resources to the advantage of the natural environment was determined ...

LOGISTIC PROCEDURES IN THE PROMOTION OF AGRITOURISM

The article concerns logistic procedures in the promotion of agritourism services used by farmers engaged in agritourism and by agritourism associations, local authorities in municipalities and agricultural advisorycenters. On the basis of the literature, various promotional instruments used by rural service providers and by these entities in the communication processes with the market were shown. Logistic aspects concerning planning and implementation of agritourism development were presented, mainly the role of agritourism information and promotional activities in these processes. Farmers providing agritouristic services most often use various forms of promotion. Among them, they use online advertising, publishing houses, including catalogs, trips to  gritourism fairs, personal sale and different forms of public relation. In the agritourism promotion they often have support from local authorities, agritourism associations and agricultural advisory centres. All promotionalactivities undertaken by farmers themselves and with the support of these entities constitute an important part of agrotourism logistics. ...