Can Animals Be the Key to the Development of Tourism: A Case Study of Livestock in Agritourism

Socio-Economic Factors Influencing Agritourism Farm Stays and Their Safety during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Poland

The article presents reasons for the choices and opinions of tourists regarding rest and its safety in agritourism farms in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We used the diagnostic survey method. We distributed the questionnaire via the Internet on Facebook in thematic groups related to tourism. Facebook respondents were also asked to provide a link to the questionnaire to their tourism-active friends (snowball sampling). We conducted the survey in January 2021. Research has shown that well-educated and well-off residents of cities most often chose agritourism. The main reason for the choice is the possibility of rest in peace and quiet, natural values, and an attractive price. Notably, during the pandemic, an important reason for choosing agritourism was to convince tourists that the risk of coronavirus infection was relatively low. This is also evidenced by the fact that most of them visited an agritourism farm for the first time during the pandemic. The attractiveness of staying on an agritourism farm was assessed highly (almost all respondents expressed their willingness to take advantage of this form of leisure again). This is due to the high evaluation of the quality of services provided, the offer’s attractiveness, and price competitiveness.

The Assessment of the Tourism Potential of the Tagus International Nature Reserve Landscapes Using Methods Based on the Opinion of the Demand

There are different methodologies to assess landscape preferences, however there is no consensual methodology that can be replicated to identify their tourism potential. Recent studies have focused on agricultural landscape preferences due to their cultural characteristics. Although agricultural activity conflicts with the management models of natural protected areas, traditional models and sustainable practices reveal opportunities to boost tourism in this area, both for their aesthetic value, and for the opportunity to preserve biodiversity and maintain “lively landscapes”. The present study focuses on a double approach to collect data to measure the preferences for landscape typologies to realize outdoor/recreative activities in Tagus International Nature Reserve (TINR), among them, agricultural landscapes, such as the agro-silvopastural system “Dehesa/Montado” or olive grove. The preference of the landscapes were evaluated through photographs with pairwise comparison and without photographs observation, in which 174 respondents were consulted with. The different methodologies applied allowed for the extraction of different results, which led to the assumption that in fact there is no single methodology to assess preferences. However, the application of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology with photographical pairwise comparison allowed for the extraction of more robust results when considering attractions with tourism typologies, revealing that “Cultural tourism/Rural mixed” and “Agritourism” were the most valued. This information is pertinent to support TINR managers and local tourism promoters to plan and structure products and services based on button-up methodologies.