The relationship between agritourism and social capital in Italian regions

Abstract

Agritourism has consistently increased in Italian rural areas since the early 1990s. Social capital is a fundamental pillar in reducing socio-economic marginalisation in rural areas. This study's main purpose was to assess, through two different quantitative approaches, the estimated impact of social capital on the growth of agritourism in all Italian regions from 2010 to 2019. The quantitative model used data envelopment analysis (DEA) to analyse efficiency and a two-stage DEA to analyse the growth of agritourism. Furthermore, machine learning was used to investigate whether some variables—namely crime perception, people at risk of poverty, internet diffusion, and people involved in co-ops—are linked to social capital and the development of agritourism in rural areas of Italy. The findings reveal that social capital for people involved in co-ops has been an important lever in the development of agritourism in Italy; by contrast, the fear of criminality is linked to a low level of social capital and reduces the growth of agritourism.