Rural Tourists and Their Attitudes and Motivations Towards the Practice of Environmental Activities such as Agrotourism

Leco, F.; Hernández, J.M.; Campón, A.M.

doi:10.22059/ijer.2012.604

Rural Tourists and Their Attitudes and Motivations Towards the Practice of Environmental Activities such as Agrotourism

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

F. Leco ¹

J.M. Hernández ²

A.M. Campón ²

¹ Department of Arts and Territory Sciences, University of Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain

² Department of Business Management and Sociology, University of Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain

10.22059/ijer.2012.604

Abstract

Within the broader category of rural tourism, agrotourism is a type of tourism carried out in a
very specific environment, mixed livestock and tillage farms. Its importance resides in the fact that it offers the possibility of complementing the income generated by the farm with income generated from tourism while at the same time carrying out an activity that promotes the conservation of nature. Although rural tourism has enjoyed strong growth in European countries such as Spain, the same has not occurred with agrotourism, in spite of the great potential that exists for it. The aim of this paper is to study the attitudes and motivations of tourists to the practice of agrotourism, an activity which has a strong environmental component.

Keywords

environment

Rural Tourism

Agrotourism

Tourism management

Agricultural diversification

sustainability