Polish agritourism farm website quality and the nature of services provided

The presented study is aimed at solving the following problems: what product is offered by agritourism farms, what is the typology of agritourism farms in terms of the products offered, and do the specific attributes of a website correspond to the specific attributes of provided services? The present study was conducted for a set of agritourism farm websites. From a total of 574 websites subjected to inspection testing, 287 websites were hosted on a paid server with a ccTLD domain, and 287 websites were hosted on a free server with an assigned free domain. Each website was described using 35 diagnostic variables. The achieved score was subsequently normalised using the zero unitarisation method. Based on the observations made in the present study, it can be concluded that the website development technique translates into the nature of activities conducted by a farm, as the form of the offer presentation online translates into what a tourist can expect directly on the farm. The study revealed that underdeveloped, amateurish websites are used to promote traditionally understood family agricultural farms which offer an opportunity to work on the farm. This knowledge is of importance for tourists worldwide, as tourists should not be afraid of the amateurish websites of agritourism farms, as they advertise genuine rural agricultural farms offering accommodation. Based on the results, a new typology of agritourism farms demonstrated that specialised farms with modern websites typically offer more extensive tourism opportunities and have more available beds at their disposal