The phantom of (agri)tourism and agriculture symbiosis? A Greek case study

Abstract

This paper aims at exploring the profile of (agri-)tourism entrepreneurs and their businesses, to estimate and compare, using a full account approach, the cash flows earned from tourism and (where appropriate) from farming at firm level and to explore the influence of socioeconomic characteristics of the owners and their businesses in tourism businesses' effectiveness. These issues are not sufficiently dealt with in the international (agri)tourism literature. Research in mountainous Corinth, Greece, shows that the relationship between agritourism and agriculture is weak with non-residents having largely exploited the tourism development opportunity which emerged in the area in the 2000s. This, in turn, implies the leakage of tourism development benefits out of the local economy. When accommodation businesses are differentiated depending upon the owners' relationship to agriculture the analysis of their accounts as well as multivariate analysis show that the combination of tourism and farming is able to support the farming households; however, the opportunity was rather marginally captured by local farmers.