Agritourism Needs and Preferences: Determining How Extension Education Can Help

The primary purpose of the study was to identify the types of agritourism operations in Tennessee and to identify the educational needs and the areas in which agritourism providers need more knowledge. Participants were picked from the Tennessee Agritourism Association and the Tennessee Department of Agriculture’s Pick Tennessee product listings. To identify these needs an instrument was developed based on Wolfe and Hammock’s (2006) of the Georgia Agritourism Initiative. The variables of this study are activities agritourism providers currently offer, plans, aims, and purposes providers have for the future, learning preferences agritourism providers have, and social media practices as forms of marketing that providers use or would like to use. Participants’ responses mostly corresponded with the literature review. Our participants were very vested in the diversification of their farm enterprise through agritourism. For most of them, approximately half of their operation was open to the public. Researchers found that Extension Education can help agritourism providers by offering training on different agritourism activities and various marketing strategies, including effective social media strategies. Agritourism in Tennessee has a strong presence and the aims and goals of entering agritourism are to help provide agriculture literacy to their customers and to gain financial security through this economic diversification strategy