Agritourism business model in Ben Tre – Present and future

Abstract

Ben Tre is an emerging destination in the Mekong Delta and known as ``Vietnam's coconut kingdom''. The number of visitors to Ben Tre has been continuously increased, but the revenue per visitor is still quite low compared with other destinations. In the current, the tourism product of Ben Tre is mainly agritourism which mostly supplied by traditional agricultural production sites. Very few agritourism practice hi-tech agricultural productions. Most visitors visit Ben Tre are from HCMC and neighboring provinces. Due to the small scale of agritourism business sites, they have not been reached the large and high-end markets. This study aims to identify the current agritourism business models and then proposed future business linkage models. Qualitative method is used to conduct this study. Data is collected through observation techniques and combined with faceto- face interviews at Phu An Khang Tourist, Hai Van Farm- Van Ho Bird Sanctuary, Bay Thao Durian Garden, and Ecotourism cooperation of Thanh Phong community. This study proposes that in the future, Ben Tre should link agritourism business sites based on horizontal integration model to promote tourist products into a new market with large scale and high-end customers. The models of horizontal integration should be implemented as the association model as similar to "Bienvenu à la ferme" (France) and the corporation model as similar to Marahastra Corporation (India) because Ben Tre has the similar conditions conduct and develop these models.