Leisure Farms Research Articles

An evaluation framework for the sustainable operation of leisure farms

The Taiwanese government’s promotion of domestic travel has generated high demand for leisure farming, resulting in the increasing establishment of leisure farms and an intensification of competition. A key concern for farm operators is how to operate and develop farms according to the principles of sustainability. Through a literature review, in-depth interviews and a modified Delphi technique, this study developed an evaluation framework for the sustainable operation of leisure farms. From the study results, we derived 39 indicators encompassing the five dimensions, namely social sustainability, economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, resource sustainability and management sustainability. The implications of these findings for managing leisure farms and future research directions are discussed.

Education, Educational Services and their Quality

eWOM Richness of Leisure Farm Tour Experience：Influences of Message Valence, Product Type and Consumer Knowledge Shuling Liao, Crystal Tzu-ying Lee, Tzu-han Lin, Meng-chen Lin Abstract Rich information facilitates consumer buying judgment and decision-making, and therefore enhances marketing communication effectiveness. Drawing on the information richness theory, this study attempts to address how valence of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), product type and consumer knowledge will yield different levels of eWOM richness perception for experience goods versus search goods. The results based on a three-way experimental study with 156 valid responses suggest that negative eWOM has a stronger effect in producing eWOM information richness than does positive eWOM, and such effect is more pronounced for a leisure farm tour (experience goods) than for digital camera (search goods). The tendency that negative eWOM will provide richer information for the leisure farm tour is more evident for high-knowledge consumers than for low-knowledge consumers. The study’s results caution against the aggravated harm of negative eWOM incurred from the dissatisfactory experience of a leisure farm tour. The managerial implications for the practitioners are provided. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jmm.v3n2a6

The international marketing strategy modeling of leisure farm

This study considers the role of international marketing strategy and its relation to marketing performance in the leisure farm context. Knowledge of this important domain of international marketing strategy and performance remains limited, and a number of important questions concerning what the effective international marketing strategies for attracting foreign visitors are need answers. This study attempts to identify important external environment forces, international marketing strategies, and performance in the leisure farm context. This study empirically uses mail survey data from 212 leisure farms and tests predicted relationships by using multiple regression analysis (MRA) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method (FsQCA). Findings from the research sample support the argument that government assistance, international promotion strategy, product strategy, and economic environment are the key antecedents of organizational performance. Building on the research results, the study develops the international marketing plan for the leisure farm. The study also discusses policy and managerial implications of research findings.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Tourism-Based Leisure Farms in Taiwan

This research is the first attempt of a carbon emission investigation of tourism-based farms. A total of 36 cases were investigated. The result reveals that each tourist returns an average revenue of 28.6 USD and generates an average 10.9 kg-CO2eq per visit of carbon emissions. The average carbon emission density for each land area is 8.2 t/ha·year and is 245 kg/m²·year for each floor area. It is estimated that the overall carbon emissions reach 321,751 tons annually. The tourism-based farms were clustered into five categories, based on their business characteristics. It was found that high-end vacation leisure farms produce 2.46 times the carbon emissions than natural eco-conservation farms. Carbon emissions were 42% higher than the annual average in July and August. A secondary high season is in February, but it is merely higher than the annual average by 8% because of the mild climate. Two significant models for predicting carbon emissions were constructed by stepwise regression. As agriculture administrative authorities in Taiwan gradually have begun admitting the cultivated lands for multi-purpose usage, tourism-based farms have been increasing drastically. This study provides references for both public authorities and farm managers in exploring the issues with regard to carbon emissions and farm sustainability.

Foreign tourists' intentions in visiting leisure farms

This study examines antecedents of visit intention for foreign tourists. The article explores the relationship of visit intention with brand image, functional attachment, motivation, experiential activities, and agriculture product sales in the leisure farm context. The study identifies five key antecedents of visit intention. Drawing on online survey and personal interview data from 1227 foreign tourists, empirical analysis tests predicted relationships. The conceptual model explores relationships among research constructs by using structural equation modeling (SEM) and fsQCA. Findings support the hypotheses that brand image, functional attachment, motivation, experiential activities, and agriculture product attitude are key drivers of visit intention. The paper also presents a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications of the research findings for the marketing of leisure farms. Results provide unique insights to help tourist farm entrepreneurs develop businesses capable of attracting foreign visitors.

Balanced scorecard performance evaluation in a closed-loop hierarchical model under uncertainty

This study provides valuable support for successful decision making in network hierarchical structures. The balanced scorecard (BSC) is a measurement system that requires a balanced set of financial and non-financial measures. This study examined both qualitative and quantitative data for the proposed hybrid analytical method. Although numerous studies have been conducted in industry and academia for the development of BSC performance measures, few studies have explored a BSC hierarchical network structure and interdependence relations under uncertainty. This study proposed a set of hybrid approaches for the real case of a performance evaluation of a leisure farm and demonstrated a closed-loop analytical network process for the hierarchical and interdependence relations BSC to assist research improve practical performance and enhance management effectiveness and efficiency regarding qualitative and quantitative information. This study adopted the traditional BSC framework that considers importance weights, performance weights and norm values. The results indicated that the financial aspect is highly weighted and exhibits superior performance; however, the customer aspect exhibits a higher ranking when considering the importance weight and norm value. Managerial implications and concluding remarks are also included in the study.

Physical Environment Assessment Tools for the Performance of Recreational Farm

The goal of this study is to achieve sustainability environment. According to our previous study in the nine Indicators of Taiwanese Green Building, and the Canada GBTools evaluation, combined with Taiwan’s leisure farms, we simulate evaluation factors of sustainability for the practical environments in Taiwan’s leisure farms. We then classify the evaluation factors according to its tendencies and create an expertise questionnaire using these tendencies. Through the results of the expertise questionnaires, we understood how much the experts valued ecology, energy, resource, society, and economy. We then further analyze the cause of the varying degree of attention paid to each category according to its attributes . SPSS statistic software is used as the analytic tool. Through factor analysis and the deletion of factor loading, this study attained four kinds and nine evaluations as well as 29 evaluations points: "perfect environment", "resources management ", "energy efficiency management". In addition, "complete plans and evaluations", "environment workload", "environment plans", the conclusion is that the most valued points for the business are: "environment plans", "environment workload", "perfect environment". However, the most valued points for the government are: "perfect environment", "resources management ", water resources and green materials. As for scholars, the most valued points are: "perfect environment", "environment workload", "using local renewable materials" as well as "environment plans". Analysis of Variance, the conclusion is that the most valued points for the government and scholars are: "natural sounding usage", "legality of base selection", "effectiveness in pollution process", "light efficiency control management systems", "simplified interior design". Finally, LSD analysis attained five evaluation points: "natural sounding usage", "legality of base selection", "effectiveness in pollution process", "light efficiency control management systems", "simplified interior design". The result of this study shows that implementations would be much easier if the necessary equipments and space were put into consideration during the planning stage of recreational farms. Lastly, this study suggests leisure farms choose their operating method carefully. The operating method should meet the nature of leisure agriculture; it should also consider utilizing the sustainable development assessment indicators and relevant decorations in the future. If a correct operating method is chosen, it will facilitate an environmentally friendly leisure farm. Keyword: Recreational Farm, Sustainability, Factor analysis.

Development Analysis of Leisure Agriculture–A Case Study of Longjing Tea Garden, Hangzhou, China

Leisure agriculture is one sector of the agricultural tourisms. The gist intends to provide a tourist with more relaxing activities. Since the developed leisure farms can provide more employment, this research analyzes the development strategies of leisure agriculture in Longjing tea garden. The study adopted concept of ASEB grid method. Studies areas were the Longjing tea gardens in Hangzhou. The results found that the SA composition had a good reputation. The SS showed the high-quality tea zone. The SE had a convenient transportation. The SB had more experience knowledge. The WA had insufficient theoretical guidance. The WS comprised many commercialized zones. The WE revealed the weakness of primitive tea garden. The WB hardly presented the guaranteed interests. The OA highlighted the tourism policy orientation. The OS implemented the leisure agriculture's system. The OE provided an educational project. The OB preferred an enjoyable a day-off. The TA found a single product. The TS had more pollution. The TE met a variety of psychological requirements. Finally, the TB discovered an ecology of the site environment. Hopefully, this study can help the policy-makers determine some practical means to develop and sustain the leisure farms.

CHÁCARAS DE LAZER: UM ESTUDO SOBRE O ESPAÇO RURAL DE GUARAPUAVA

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12957/geouerj.2013.4012 Starting from the premise that spaces in Guarapuava (State Of Parana, Brazil) are becoming the pace of national development, this article triggers socio-spatial reflections on the experiences in ruralities the municipality, from the study of leisure farms in the condition of domicile of use causes. The expansion of this phenomenon is indicative of the socio-cultural development and urban space, coupled with the modernization of the countryside. Process reflected in significant changes in daily life traditionally known, especially in the relations of production and work and between man and nature. The results revealed that the object of study attracts a significant proportion of urban ruralities for the local population, as well as promote local natural element, shaping a new territorialisation of that space dedicated to leisure and contributing to local development.

The Relationships Among Employee Personality Traits, Service Attitude, and Service Behavior in the Leisure Farm

Many studies emphasize the importance of first-line employees, believing that they are a significant determinant of the quality of business service and operational success. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among employee personality traits, service attitude, and service behavior in the leisure farm. The study surveys first-line employees in leisure farms and uses Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) software to test the model. The research result indicates that employee personal traits directly affect service attitude, but it does not have a direct effect on service behavior, rather, personality traits influence service behavior through service attitude. Therefore, service attitude plays a mediation role in the relationship between employee personality traits and service behavior in the leisure farm. Because personality traits could predict service attitude and affect service behavior, this research suggests that leisure farm operators could improve service quality through employee personality traits selection.

Exploring Tourists' Cognition of Crisis Management on Leisure Farms

The population for this study was tourists from four leisure farms in Southern Taiwan. Out of 400 distributed questionnaires, 347 usable responses were received, indicating a valid response rate of 87%. Regarding the ranking of tourists’ cognition toward crisis event seriousness, the statistics results show that the possibility of “getting attacked by wild bugs” ranked first, followed by “the lack of maintaining and checking children playing facilities causes injuries”. However, low cognition was observed on the item “get attacked by raised animals”. In terms of the ranking of tourists’ cognition toward crisis event precautious capability, the best capabilities were “the lack of maintaining and checking children playing facilities causes injuries” and “getting attacked by wild bugs”. On the contrary, the worst precautious capability was “dangerous trails (e.g., roadways are easy to cause slip and fall/too steep/dangerous topography)”. In addition, the findings indicate that different background variables (e.g., gender, age, educational background and marital status) exert significant differences on tourists’ cognition toward crisis event seriousness and precautious capability on leisure farms.

Exploring Tourists' Leisure Farm Environmental Protection Behavioral Cognition and Travel Willingness

This study aims to explore the impact of tourists leisure farm environmental protection behavioral cognition on their travel willingness. The research population was visitors from ten leisure farms in Southern Taiwan. Out of 600 distributed survey questionnaires, 517 usable responses were returned with a high valid response rate of 72%. The study findings show that (1) tourists gender and age variables exert no significant differences regarding the impacts on tourists environmental protection behavioral cognition, (2) tourists with university educational background have higher leisure farm environmental protection behavioral cognition than tourists with high school educational level, (3) married tourists have higher environmental protection awareness than unmarried tourists, and (4) tourists leisure farm environmental protection behavioral cognition has high explanatory power toward forecasting travel willingness.

A Study on the Physical Environment Assessment Tool for the Performance of Leisure Agricultural

The goal of this study is to achieve sustainability environment. According to our previous study in the nine Indicators of Taiwanese Green Building, and the Canada GBTools evaluation, combined with Taiwan’s leisure farms, we simulate evaluation factors of sustainability for the practical environments in Taiwan’s leisure farms. We then classify the evaluation factors according to its tendencies and create an expertise questionnaire using these tendencies. Through the results of the expertise questionnaires, we understood how much the experts valued ecology, energy, resource, society, and economy. We then further analyze the cause of the varying degree of attention paid to each category according to its attributes . SPSS statistic software is used as the analytic tool. Through factor analysis and the deletion of factor loading, this study attained four kinds and nine evaluations as well as 29 evaluations points: "perfect environment", "resources management ", "energy efficiency management". In addition, "complete plans and evaluations", "environment workload", "environment plans", the conclusion is that the most valued points for the business are: "environment plans", "environment workload", "perfect environment". However, the most valued points for the government are: "perfect environment", "resources management ", water resources and green materials. As for scholars, the most valued points are: "perfect environment", "environment workload", "using local renewable materials" as well as "environment plans". Analysis of Variance, the conclusion is that the most valued points for the government and scholars are: "natural sounding usage", "legality of base selection", "effectiveness in pollution process", "light efficiency control management systems", "simplified interior design". Finally, LSD analysis attained five evaluation points: "natural sounding usage", "legality of base selection", "effectiveness in pollution process", "light efficiency control management systems", "simplified interior design". The result of this study shows that implementations would be much easier if the necessary equipments and space were put into consideration during the planning stage of recreational farms. Lastly, this study suggests leisure farms choose their operating method carefully. The operating method should meet the nature of leisure agriculture; it should also consider utilizing the sustainable development assessment indicators and relevant decorations in the future. If a correct operating method is chosen, it will facilitate an environmentally friendly leisure farm.

Sustainable supply chain management: an example of reishi extracted products in the farm

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to build a sustainable supply chain management system for reishi extracted products in a leisure farm in Taiwan. By using quantitative approach and interviewing the reishi farm owner, innovative ways to link SCM and tourism in reishi industry are shown to gain competitive advantages for this reishi farm. In this paper, we also provide suggestions on SCM for this reishi farm, for example, to provide rooms for visitors to stay overnight and to provide a show room to share owner’s reishi SCM knowledge to visitors in order to promote reishi extracted products in Taiwan. In a word, the value of this case study is to show how to link SCM and tourism for reishi industry in Taiwan.

An analysis of the critical factors that affect the competitive advantages and developmental strategies of leisure farms in Taiwan

Leisure farms in Taiwan are currently undergoing a fast development. The utilization of distinctive strategies to create successful operational competitiveness is becoming the guiding policy of enterprises for their future development. This study adopts the value chain perspective to develop criteria for different dimensions and to develop a strategic hierarchical structure by using the fuzzy Delphi method. Through the FANP (Fuzzy Analytic Network Process) method, this study discovers the critical factors influencing the competitive advantages of leisure farms in Taiwan: (1) the uniqueness of the landscape and ecological resources, (2) the richness of agricultural resources, (3) the attractiveness of the landscape and ecological resources, (4) service quality, (5) the convenience of the accommodation, (6) the provision of education and guiding services, and the like. Finally, according to the research results of the study, the authors make suggestions on the corresponding developmental strategies of leisure farms, including (1) creating the characteristics of a leisure farm through the development and utilization of the farm’s internal and surrounding environmental resources and (2) perceiving the tourists’ needs and improving the service quality. With the suggestions made and the reference data concluded in this study, the authors expect to enhance effectively the current competitive advantages of leisure farms.  

Applying Kano's Two Dimensions, Value Expansion and BPNN Prediction Model into Enhancing the Business Intelligence of Leisure Farming in Taiwan

How to obtain the useful business intelligence and enhance their competitiveness during the competitive environment had known as an important issue to be addressed for all enterprises. In this study, we proposed the architecture based on Kano’s two dimension model and value expansion/prediction model to mine the hidden business intelligence and enhance the enterprise’s competitiveness. The hidden information including the important benefits and products/services attributes can be then obtained by using value expansion model; and the possible relationships among values, benefits and products/services attributes can also be modeled by using value prediction model. Finally, an illustrative example owing to the leisure farming in Taiwan is then taken to demonstrate the feasibility and rationality of the proposed architecture.

Tourism and Local Culture: A Case Study of Leisure Farm Development in Taiwan

Tourism and Local Culture: A Case Study of Leisure Farm Development in Taiwan

Five Days of Magic at Asia's Camp for Burn Patients in Taiwan

Five Days of Magic at Asia's Camp for Burn Patients in Taiwan

A study of service model among interactive marketing, service value, customer satisfaction and behavior intention: A case of I-Lan area leisure farm in Taiwan

In the current service literature, most researches focus on either physical facility or service personnel. There is little attention to the factor of service process. Therefore, in this paper, the service process into the dimension of interactive marketing was added. This paper tried to link three factors of interactive marketing: service value, customer satisfaction and behavior intention to develop a new service model and to discuss the influential effect and relationship among these factors. By doing these, the leisure business manager could control the key factors and make a success for developing leisure farm business. The results revealed that certain relationships between the structures did appear to respond to each other. These were: (1) interactive marketing (service personnel, physical facility and service process) had a significant positive direct effect on customer satisfaction; (2) physical facility and service process also had a significant positive direct effect on service value, but service personnel did not; (3) interactive marketing through service value or/and customer satisfaction, had a positive indirect effect on behavior intention; (4) service value and customer satisfaction had a significant positive direct effect on behavior intention. Key words: Interactive marketing, service value, customer satisfaction, behavior intention.

The effects of service quality, tourism impact, and tourist satisfaction on tourist choice of leisure farming types

In the highly-competitive leisure service industry, improving service quality to gain competitive advantages is the only key to sustainable management of leisure agriculture. However, developing leisure farming may cause positive and negative impact on local economy, social culture, and environment. Therefore, how to identify the factors affecting tourist choice of leisure farming types is an important issue which is worth studying. Leisure farming tourists living in Taiwan were selected as research subjects. The sampling survey is executed by questionnaires. The collected data are also analyzed by using statistical methods. The research results show: (1) there are positive relationships among service quality, positive tourism impact, and total tourist satisfaction; (2) some demographic variables may lead to significant difference in perception of service quality, tourism impact, and total tourist satisfaction; (3) tangibles and assurance of service quality, positive economy and positive social culture of tourism impact significantly influence tourist choice of leisure farming types; (4) there are significantly positive and direct effects between service quality and positive tourism impact, and positive tourism impact and total tourist satisfaction, but significantly negative and direct effects between service quality and negative tourism impact, and negative tourism impact and total tourist satisfaction through Amos analysis. Key words: Leisure farming, service quality, positive/negative tourism impact, total tourist satisfaction.