Agritourism Awareness Off To A Good Start

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Tourism News

Saturday, 30 June 2012 02:30

By Eef Armstrong

Antigua St. John’s - This week, the Ministry of Tourism has been conducting several seminars to promote awareness for Agritourism, a form of tourism that involves any agriculturally based activity that brings a visitor to a farm or ranch for enjoyment and education while generating an additional income for the farmer.

Different sectors like farmers, taxi drivers, tour operators, hotel guest service managers, the media and vendors were targeted at the seminars.

“The whole idea is really to get everyone involved  as uniting is crucial for getting  Antigua Agritourism on the map”, explains Jennifer Maynard, Agritourism Consultant at the Ministry of Tourism.

“We want the taxi drivers to be aware that certain farms are into agritourism so they can include a visit to the farm in their taxi tour. The hotels need to be alerted so they can advise their guests to what is available for tours and the media is a great outlet for spreading the word and creating awareness.”

Farmers are the main attraction and therefore it is important to educate them on what needs to be done to receive tourists on their farm. Certain safety measures need to be in place, paths need to be cleared, fences put up and they need to be compliant to ‘good agricultural pratice’. Another issue is, how do farmers promote themselves?

According to Maynard, the seminars are only the start and a series of workshops on the above mentioned subjects are to follow.

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The seminars put the spotlight onto agritourism and covered definitions and types of agritourism, global and regional examples of successful agritourism products, benefits to tourists, agritourism experiences of tourists, the uniqueness of farm-based tourism, how agritourism packages are created, and how agritourism is sold to tourists.

Roslyn Simon and Dave Joseph are two locals who already started agritourism on their farms. Joseph has Wadadli Animal Nature Park which is located at Lower Lyons Estate and Simon runs Rose Macs Herb Gardens at Johnson’s Point. Both their ventures are looking promising in regards to paid visitors. Within the next two months Maynard hopes to visit these farms with representatives from all sectors that attended the seminars.

“We need to see what Antigua farming is like and that’s why we are organising a tour for all stakeholders,” she said.

She is positive that agritourism can be a reality in Antigua & Barbuda and added that attendance at the seminars was about 50 per cent of the expected turnout.

The series were co-facilitated by Maynard and Lori Pennington-Gray, PhD, an Associate Professor in Tourism who is a volunteer with the Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas (FAVACA), and the Associate Director of the Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute and Director of the Tourism Crisis Management of the Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sports Management of the University of Florida.

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