Which Human Resources Are Important for Turning Agritourism Potential into Reality? SWOT Analysis in Rural Nepal

Abstract

Despite Nepal’s agritourism strategies for promoting agrarian villages, agritourism has not yet gained popularity. Based on two different surveys conducted in August 2017 and January 2019, we explore the agritourism development strategies and the agritourism potential for Phikuri village, an agrarian village in Nepal. Using a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) matrix, we explore four main strategies and 15 sub-strategies. The four main categories are as follows. A maxi-maxi strategy characterised by strengths and opportunities, a maxi-mini strategy characterised by strengths and threats, a mini-maxi strategy characterised by weaknesses and opportunities, and a mini-mini strategy characterised by threats and weaknesses. A quantified SWOT matrix of the estimated total value of the internal and external factor evaluation matrices reveals that Phikuri village has more strengths than weaknesses and more opportunities than threats. We statistically compare the opinions of three different groups, organised by gender, age, and occupation. The results reveal statistically significant differences in the opinions of men and women, younger and older generations, and public and private workers. This study also shows that women are critical for agritourism development, even in a male-dominated society.

A Review of Quantitative Studies in Agritourism: The Implications for Developing Countries

“…Agritourism development in developing countries is essential for the alleviation of poverty and rural development. However, the pace of agritourism's growth in developing countries, especially in the South Asian countries, is delayed as compared with the pace of that in developed countries [1][2][3][4][5]. Agritourism development is primarily based on farmers' willingness [1,2] and the ability to establish the necessary infrastructure [6][7][8], as well as tourists' interest in visiting such attractions [9][10][11].…”

“…Thus, farmers can invest a small amount initially and increase their investment according to the demand, together with planning and implementation. As farmers in developing countries often lack the qualities required to work in agritourism [3], policymakers should insist on maintaining the quality of the farmers, credit availability, and the proper planning and monitoring of agritourism. If the farmers receive incentives, they perform farm diversification [47]; therefore, the government could attract the farmers to start agritourism through the provision of incentives/subsidies.…”

Factors Influencing the Accommodation Prices of Romanian Rural Tourism

“…Finally, some difficulties that undermine the development of rural tourism identified in the literature result from the inability of rural entrepreneurs in tourism to fully satisfy the demands of tourists [43] or from insufficient training in hospitality [44]. These shortcomings can be alleviated through the application of analytic decision-making methods [45], implying the willingness of rural entrepreneurs to pursue an organised and scientific approach to the decision-making process.…”

Graphic Applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the Study of Industrial Heritage Assets

“…SWOT analysis is an efficient management tool to evaluate the strategic positioning of an organization, and it has been widely used in different context and industries [37][38][39]. This method is usually applied to well defined processes, but it can also be applied to the analysis of emerging technologies, such as electric vehicles [40], BIM technology [41], methanol-fueled vehicles [42] or information technology [43], among others [44,45], allowing one to evaluate their current state and future possibilities.…”