Farmers’ willingness to establish community-based agritourism: evidence from Phikuri village, Nepal

ABSTRACT

Despite an increase in farmers’ income due to community-based agritourism (CBAT), their willingness to undertake CBAT has never been investigated. Therefore, this study aims to investigate farmers’ willingness as software to establish CBAT where agritourism does not exist. Sixty-four farmers in rural Nepal were interviewed, and the data from their responses were analysed through an ordered logit regression model. The factors affecting willingness were first defined and structured into three categories – social, agricultural, and tourism-related issues – which were further explained by six variables. The empirical results of the investigation show that investment capacity and farmers’ knowledge of tourism had the largest marginal effects on willingness; all other factors had significantly positive effects too. To assist CBAT development, policymakers should first provide the support measures focusing on investment issues and capacity building.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-based agritourism
• farmers’ willingness to establish CBAT
• ordered logit
• Community-based agritourism (CBAT) in Nepal
• tourism agriculture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Academic Promotion Committee of Chiba University #1 under Overseas Travel Grant; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) #2 under Grant-in Aid for Scientific Research no [26283017 and no 18H03965].

Notes on contributors

Kumar Bhatta

Mr. Kumar Bhatta is a Ph.D. scholar at Chiba University, Japan. His study focuses on development perspectives of agritourism in Nepal.

Yasuo Ohe

Dr. Yasuo Ohe is a professor at Chiba University, Japan. His main research concern is the economic analyses of rural tourism and farm diversification in Japan and Italy.