Sustainable Marketing of Agro-Tourism: The Socio-cultural Perspective

Abstract

Agricultural tourism has emerged as a niche tourism phenomenon and its demand has soared across the globe. This paper focuses on the socio-cultural sustainability of agro-tourism. Key socio-cultural dimensions, social capital and authenticity, are examined based on a purposeful sample of spatially dispersed farms in the US. The study results illustrate that agrotourism holds tremendous potential to strengthen and promote local food systems by promoting traditional ways of farming, particularly objective and negotiated dimensions of authenticity, social cohesion, trust and reciprocity. Marketing strategies promoting socio-cultural consumption of agro-tourism are suggested.

Keywords

• authenticity
• social capital
• sustainability
• agro-tourism
• and farms

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