PROMOTING OF AGROTOURISM ON THE INTERNET – A LESSON FROM THE VISEGRAD GROUP COUNTRIES

Abstract

Research results of chosen aspects of agrotourism promotion on the Internet in Visegrad Group countries are presented in this paper. Surveys were performed in three stages. In the first stage, visibility of agrotouristic farms websites in search results was examined. In the second stage, an attemptwas made to measure to what extent websites of agrotouristic farms “reach the recipients”. And in the third stage, selected aspects of their usage techniques were tested. The surveys show that farms from Visegrad Group countries, which carry out rural agrotourism and make attempts to find customers viathe Internet, lose the race on the Web with entities from the IT field. Such entities provide big business portals that accumulate various accommodation offers. They are the ones with the help that makes it possible to find recreation offers in the countryside in a simple and quick way. Some recommendationsresulting from the performed surveys is merging farms into organised groups, associations and clusters and promoting on the Internet. Websites that present unique content and a greater number of offers have a greater opportunity be rank high in search results. This, in turn, can result in the number of displays of a website and in use of lodgings. Therefore, decisions about a competitive advantage can be made.