engleski

Agritourism Farms as Stakeholders of Gastronomic Experience

The growth of interest in gastro tourism has been noticed over the last few years on a global scale, as well as in Croatia. The purpose of this work is to examine the state of agritourism farms in five counties of Eastern Croatia as stakeholders of original gastrotourism experiences and to understand to which extent gastronomy and tourist experiences associated with it are being used as the means for positioning the tourist destination. The first part of this paper offers a theoretical approach to the phenomena of agritourism and gastro tourism in the context of creative tourist experience and the need for creating a surrounding that would encourage the tourists to co-create their own tourist experiences based on the gastronomy heritage and local culture of life and work. The empirical part of this work is based on the theory that the existing agritourism farms do not use the gastronomy offer as a prominent means of differentiating and positioning in the sense of creating a wholesome gastro-tourism experience, the fact that stems from the interview results based on the responses of ten examined owners of agritourism farms in the mentioned area. The empirical research data suggest that agritourism facilities do not give enough attention to the design of wholesome gastro-tourism experiences – which is an imperative of a modern gastro-tourism product in rural destinations – and that the examined area lacks an integral association of the overall destination offer in the sense of creating a gastro-tourism experience.

agritourism ; creative tourism ; experience economy ; gastro-tourism

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