The Essence of Agritourism and Its Profitability during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

Abstract

The article aims to present the essence of agritourism in the literature regarding the subject of its profitability during the COVID-19 pandemic. To verify the goal, data from our own research was applied. The research was conducted in 2019 and 2020 with the exploratory survey method and an interview questionnaire. Thirty-two service providers running agritourism activities in randomly selected rural communes of the Podlaskie province (communes of Mielnik, Suchowola, Giby, Płaska, and Hajnówka) participated in the study. The Ward cluster analysis method was used to group the counties of the Podlaskie Province in terms of spatial differentiation in the development of agritourism. For this purpose, data provided by the Central Statistical Authority in Poland reported for 2019 and the primary data (research by M. Roman) was applied. In the first part of the article, the authors describe and explain the basic concepts of rural tourism and agritourism based on the literature. The figures were also quoted, for example, the number of agritourism farms in Poland and other European countries. The last part of the study provides the results of our own research. The study demonstrates that in 2020 agritourism was profitable, as the owners of the farms recorded a profit. The research confirms the massive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agritourism. During a pandemic, many people choose places with few people (e.g., rural areas). The research also considered the importance of innovation on agritourism farms and business profitability. The issues discussed in the study relate to current events—scientific studies examining the impact of COVID-19 on agritourism concern other countries; however, the authors were not able to find studies focusing on agritourism farms in Poland. A new element of methodology in this article was to organize the concepts of agritourism and to present the impact of coronavirus pandemic on the profitability of agritourism. It was also essential to present the classification of rural tourism. According to the authors of the study, the problems covered here are new and point to new trends in the development of agritourism during the pandemic.