Yasuo Ohe

Evaluation of Agritourism Activity in Italy: Facility Based or Local Culture Based?

This paper identifies which diversified activities influence the price level of agritourism and how they do so. A hypothesis that contrasts two types of activity (facility based and local culture based) is examined. First, from a conceptual perspective, the authors note that agritourism based on local cultural resources can internalize positive externalities, which are uniquely nurtured local cultural resources, into income – unlike facility based activity that has no connection with local cultural resources. Second, the results of estimations from a price determinant ordered logit model demonstrate that owning a swimming pool is the most common and influential factor in enhancing the price level, while regional diversity is observed in local cultural resource based activities such as restaurants, World Heritage Sites and DOC wines. These findings indicate that hardware based evolution is more effective in the short term than evolution based on software. Nevertheless, this hardware based evolution of agritourism is founded implicitly on an assumption of continuously growing demand and sufficient financial capability for the fixed investment. When growth in demand becomes stagnant, facility installation can be a heavy burden on operators. Consequently, for the sustainable development of agritourism, it will be necessary to harness the locality so as to create a balance between facility based services and local culture based services.

Impact of rural tourism operated by retiree farmers on multifunctionality: evidence from Chiba, Japan.

This paper examines the roles and significance of rural tourism activity undertaken by those farmers who have retired from non-farming jobs from a multifunctional perspective in Chiba, Japan. The results revealed that rural tourism activities by retirees could realize efficient and sustainable resource utilization of the farm and therefore enhance multifunctionality of agriculture. The main findings were the following. (1) The farming style of the study farm is small production of multiple products all year round, which increases opportunities for farming and farm-life experiences by local school children and urban visitors, although this type of farming was not respected from a productivity-oriented farming perspective. (2) Providing farming experience services makes it possible to utilize unused resources, including obsolete farming techniques, in the farmyard. (3) All of these activities promote multifunctionality not only in terms of environmental functions such as land preservation, landscape formation and biodiversity, but also cultural and social functions such as recreational and educational functions. These results indicate that multifunctionality is not in parallel with the low productivity of retiree farmers and that rural tourism will be an effective and recommended activity for those farm-oriented people who have retired from non-farming occupations.

Evaluating operators' attitudes to educational tourism in dairy farms: the case of Japan

Although the educational function is attracting growing attention as a kind of multifunctionality in agriculture, educational services are not yet provided as a viable farm product. With regard to establishing a viable market for this service, this paper explores how the educational externality could be internalized by focusing on educational dairy farms in Japan. The author evaluates quantitatively the attitudes of operators towards establishing a viable service, as revealed by a questionnaire survey. First, a conceptual framework was devised to express their orientation towards an economically viable service by incorporating a stepwise internalization process of positive externalities with the help of a social learning network. Then, empirically, statistical tests were conducted and factors that determined this orientation, a viable service determinant function, were explored by means of the ordered logit model. The results show that, first, the higher the number of visitors to the farm the more operators are oriented towards a viable service, while no connection with ordinary dairy production is demonstrated. Second, social learning is effective for initiating the internalization process. Third, marketing skills become more important for upgrading the internalization level. Consequently, it is important to create opportunities for those farmers who want to provide consumers with educational services to learn a new role for agriculture and to establish a new income source.

Emerging environmental and educational service of dairy farming in Japan: dilemma or opportunity?

Multifunctionality in agriculture indicates the performance of various functions of positive externalities. However, unless these externalities are internalized in farming activity, they will not be sustainable over the long term. In the livestock farming arena, a program was started in Japan in 2000 whereby dairy farmers would offer farm experiences mainly to youngsters. Although this service is considered to be a by-product of dairy farming with positive externalities, this subject has received minimal attention. Therefore, this paper sheds light on how dairy farmers cope with this new situation by empirically examining national survey data on this activity, presenting study cases, and conceptualizing problems and ways to find solutions. The main findings were as follows: 1) Dairy farms providing farming experiences play a positive role in teaching about farm life, how food is produced and the stress relief provided by the rural environment, especially for compulsory school-age children at elementary and junior high schools in local communities. To cope with the rising number of visitors, minimal necessary facilities such as toilets should be prepared. 2) Farming experiences have an educational effect not only on visitors, but also on the farmers themselves. This is because farmers can discover new possibilities for agriculture, which eventually leads to a deepening realization of new environmental and educational services that benefit society. 3) However, it is often difficult for farmers to harmonize the provision of the service of a farming experience to visitors with performance of their own farming activity. Farmers often face the dilemma of whether to offer farming experience services on a voluntary basis free of charge or to sell such services as a new farm product, such as traditional milk products, in exchange for money. Therefore, it is necessary to raise the social recognition of the educational function generated by those farmers who provide farming experience services.

The demand trend of Italian agritourism

The demand side for agritourism in Italy has not been fully investigated despite the relatively high number of studies of the supply side. Thus, this paper statistically examined the trends in the demand side for agritourism in Italy in comparison with tourism demand in general, such as that for hotels. Data were obtained from ‘Annuario Statistico Italiano’, edited and issued by ISTAT (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica). Data from 1997 were compared with those from 2006. We examined the regional characteristics and trends in the composition of domestic and inbound tourists in relation to agritourism. The results are as follows. (1) Agritourism experienced rapid growth in the number of beds available and of those tourists who stayed overnight during the last decade, while the operation rate of agritourism is much lower than that of tourism in general. (2) Region-wise, the central region accounts for a large portion of agritourism demand and the southern region had the largest growth rate, while more than half of tourism demand in general went to the north in the case of hotel demand. (3) The market for agritourism domestic demand accounted for more than half of the total agritourism demand. The remaining demand was filled by inbound tourists from European countries. Among inbound European tourists, tourists from Scandinavia, UK and Germany increased sharply and therefore these inbound tourists are driving the growth of agritourism in this country. Even if we consider the particular reasons for low barriers to travel in Europe, such as the availability of land routes, a common currency with no risk presented by exchange rates, etc., these findings clearly indicate that it is essential for the development of agritourism to count not only on domestic, but also inbound tourists to raise the operation rate.

Efficiency analysis of Japanese Ryokans: A window DEA approach

This study evaluated the efficiency of Japanese ryokans during the period 2005–2012. The number of ryokans has been decreasing due to the inability of operators to respond to structural changes in demand. Thus, we investigated the cause of that decrease. Based on literature examining efficiency and productivity applied to tourism and hospitality, ryokans are analyzed both at the size and regional levels. The findings confirmed quantitatively the empirical literature and showed that large-scale ryokans are relatively more efficient than smaller operations, which is commonly observed in the accommodation industry. Managerial recommendations were derived from the results for small ryokans.

Evaluating the complementarity of the educational function in agriculture.

Agriculture generates positive externalities to society in addition to food production without receiving compensation, which is called the multifunctionality of agriculture. The educational function of agriculture has not been fully examined despite the growing need for such services from urbanites. This paper focused on the educational function of agriculture by considering it as a joint product of farm production in terms of not only technical complementarity, but also of institutional complementarity, which includes institutional aspects such as food and rural culture. Data were obtained from the URL of the Farm Experience Net, launched in May 2003 and operated by the National Association for Promotion of Rural Youth Education in Japan. We employed statistical tests to clarify the features of the bodies or individual farmers who provide experience services. Findings and implications were as follows. Firstly, from the perspective of complementarity, we can classify that crop-wise or operation-wise experiences showed a strong connection with the technical complementarity of farms with seasonality, while food and rural cultural experiences had a strong connection with institutional complementarity with less seasonality. Secondly, non-governmental organizations, the quasipublic sector and farmers’ groups played important roles in food and rural culture experience services. Thus, we should recognize the significance of both technical and institutional complementarity to extend the educational function of agriculture and the rural heritage. The combination of the two types of complementarity is effective in building a wide range of networks of those stakeholders who provide food and rural experience services while easing the constraints of seasonality.

Educational tourism in agriculture and identity of farm successors

Although farm visiting is gaining popularity as a type of experience-oriented tourism, the economic viability of this emerging service has not been fully established. To make it viable, it is not enough to approach educational tourism solely from a technical viewpoint, we also need to approach it from the aspect of the operator’s identity, a factor that has not been addressed fully in the arena of either rural tourism or tourism economics. Thus, by presenting a conceptual economic framework that explains the connection between a farmer’s identity and the level of diversified activity including tourism, this article has evaluated, based on a questionnaire survey of next-generation successors working on-farm at Educational Dairy Farms in Japan, the hypothesis that those farmers who have enlarged their identity will be able to successfully develop diversified activities. The results clarify factors that lead to enlarged identity, including formation of both a wider perspective and more extensive human networks from social learning opportunities, and female initiative within the activity. In this context, the issue of identity formation should be properly positioned in the field of innovation-oriented capability building of farm management.

Attitudes of Successors in Dairy Farms toward Educational Tourism in Japan

Abstract Educational tourism in agriculture is attracting growing attention. It is expected that educational activities can create a new social role for agriculture. However, farmers need to refine their identity to embark on this emerging activity. On the basis of a questionnaire survey, the present study has statistically clarified how a farmer’s identity determines their attitude toward educational tourism by focusing on mainly family-run Educational Dairy Farms in Japan. The results show that those farmers who have a wider perspective on the activity domain conduct educational tourism more positively than those who do not. The findings also indicate how the next-generation farm successors view the educational activity; that is, whether they consider themselves to be simply conventional milk producers or rather farm resource managers with a wider scope of new social demand that is connected to farmers’ identity. The latter redefinition will be increasingly necessary when farm successors conduct tourism-related activity.

O Enoturismo na Região Leste do Estado de São Paulo (Brasil) e na Província de Yamanashi (Japão): Similaridades e Assimetrias

This research is characterized as an exploratory case study of wine Tourism in Eastern region of Sao Paulo State (Brazil) and Yamanashi, region located in the central area of Japan. The survey in Sao Paulo was conducted from February to August 2013 and the data and information about Yamanashi, was collected during September 2011. The results indicated that the main similarity between the two regions was the day tour tourists preference. As main asymmetry was that in Yamanashi, the tourists visited the region for wineries tour and wine tasting and in Sao Paulo, the tourists came to participate the wine and grape festivities. Another difference was the