Agritourism and Sustainability: What We Can Learn from a Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Scholars from different perspectives agree that agritourism can be the right tool to balance the needs of tourists with those of rural communities, offering real opportunities for economic and social development, while mitigating undesirable impacts on the environment. This paper aims to provide a holistic outlook of the different perspectives under which scientific literature deals with the topic of agritourism as a means to support the sustainable development of rural areas. To reach this aim, we performed a systematic review of the scientific literature in order to point out the linkages between agritourism and sustainability. We analyzed papers through a text mining solution based on the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) technique to point out the main topics around which the scientific literature on agritourism and sustainability has grown. Topics are further categorized in themes by means of an agglomerative hierarchical clustering procedure. Results are further analyzed to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the current streams of the literature.

Political and Historical Determinants of the Differentiation of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems of Agritourism in Poland and Kazakhstan

“…The situation of agritourism development in Poland is entirely different. It is the subject of numerous studies [9][10][11][12][13][14] and is an important part of tourism and a sustainable economy at the local level [15][16][17]. Just as the level of tourism development in the studied regions differs, so does the degree of development of the entrepreneurship ecosystem (EE) [18][19][20].…”

“Agro”, “Agri”, or “Rural”: The Different Viewpoints of Tourism Research Combined with Sustainability and Sustainable Development

“…This article highlights gaps in the "agro", "agri", or "rural" tourism literature with regard to sustainability and sustainable development, while also shedding light on geographyrelated information. This meta-analysis of scientific articles related to the above-mentioned form(s) of tourism is the only review paper which also examines the location/geography of the cases and is supplementary to other meta-analyses of the agritourism literature with different topical focuses, such as, for example, [6,7,[10][11][12]115].…”

“…raphy-related information. This meta-analysis of scientific articles related to the abovementioned form(s) of tourism is the only review paper which also examines the location/geography of the cases and is supplementary to other meta-analyses of the agritourism literature with different topical focuses, such as, for example, [6,7,[10][11][12]115].…”

“…These findings are in line with Yang et al (2010) [30], pointing to the need to compare more cases, both geographically (a few examples are the references [63,76,112,[118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125]) and in scale (micro and macro level, locally and globally), from the supply and the demand side, with different stakeholders/actors (including residents, such as reference [126]), which, in turn, might lead to an improved theoretical and practical understanding of these types of development (sustainable and local). With regard to the combination and in-depth analysis of the three dimensions of sustainable development, economy, society, and environment, what emerges is that, thus far, authors have mainly adopted mono perspectives in their studies and multidisciplinary approaches are much less embraced, as also shown by Ammirato et al (2020) [12]. Despite the extent of scientific literature and "grey bibliography" analyzing economic, social and environmental impacts of "agro-", "agri-" and "rural" tourism, and the fact that these forms of tourism are taken as key factors for sustainable development, sustainability and local development, integrated approaches are largely missing from relevant literature.…”

“…Similarly, Pérez-Olmos and Aguilar-Rivera (2021) carried out a systematic review for agritourism by searching documents in EBSCO, Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science corresponding to the period 2010-2020 and focusing geographically on the region of Mexico [11]. Furthermore, Ammirato, Felicetti, Raso, Pansera and Violi (2020), with the aim to highlight [12] the linkages between agritourism and sustainability, performed a review of the scientific literature by analyzing papers through a text mining solution (the Latent Dirichlet Allocation-LDA) and introducing the level of analysis of each study: "microlevel paper"-a single agritourism farm as the research focus; "macro-level paper"-the effects of sustainability on a region or the industry as focus and aim.…”