Agritourism should provide visitors with something to see, do, learn, and buy.
The purpose of agritourism may be to educate, to build brand awareness, or to sell. But whatever the purpose, agritourism should make a profit within a reasonable time period.
Need to have a “business plan” that includes the following areas (in no particular order):
- Perception – how do people perceive your farm and what you do?
- Your pay – what is your time worth? Can you afford to pay someone to do your work?
- Bathrooms – availability, cleanliness, restocking, theft
- Hours of Operation
- Signage – must have, but people will ignore
- Guided vs Unguided – people will always go where they’re not supposed to go
- Restricted Areas, Trespassing
- Animal Safety – Animal Welfare Act
- Customer Safety
- Food Safety Laws – especially if you are serving food
- Hand washing
- Bad weather – snow, ice, tornado warnings, are floors slippery if raining
- Cleaning – inside, outside, buildings, bathrooms, people are dirty
- Graffiti
- Garbage – emptying when full, odor, enough cans, littering
- Smoking – no smoking? Cigarette areas? Cigarette butts
- Pets – dog walking area? Cats? Feces pickup and disposal
- Handicaps & Disabilities – wheelchairs, walkers, autism, blind, deaf, service dogs
- Parking – handicap parking, overflow parking
- Legalities – insurance, liability waivers
- Injury plans – available first aid
- Zoning
- Volunteers – illegal if you’re a for-profit farm
- People not leaving when you close or showing up when you close
- Gates, fencing – (driving around gate marks in snow, lady driving across hay field)
- Free Samples
- Location – directions to farm, distance to farm
- Payments – cash, checks, credit cards, bad payments, bookkeeping, theft, refunds, returns
- Employees
- Sales Tax
- Photo and Video taking
Marketing
How do you get people to come to your farm?
- Location
- Billboards
- Social media
- Newspaper ads
- Tourism magazines
- Television
- Radio
- Word of mouth
- Drive by
- Newsletters
- Pay customers to advertise for you with discounts
It takes time for people to visit for the first time. So how do you turn them into repeat customers?
- Seasonal events
- Classes
- Online follow-up
- Selling on the tour
Pricing
- Who is your target market?
- Beware those who only want your free samples or an extreme bargain
- Do you have a per person price?
- Do you have a minimum price if it’s just 1 person?
- Do you make exceptions?
- Can you hit various different price points?
- Don’t sell your time too cheaply.
To be profitable, it’s all about the sale
- Upselling
- Cross-selling
- Offering extras that you don’t make (unsold inventory costs money)
- Follow-up sales
Choose the right agritourism offerings
- Do what you do well.
- Don’t take on too much.
- Constant improvement.
- Add one new thing at a time.
- Drop what is no longer profitable.
Reviews
- Request reviews
- Publicize your positive reviews
- Always address negative reviews in a professional manner
- How you handle complaints matters. It’s better to refund than have somebody bad-mouthing you.
- Do you have a plan for dealing with people that are anti-farm, anti-livestock?
Print Material
- Do handout(s) benefit you?
- Are they profitable?
- Printed coupons?
Profitability
The most important aspect of running an agritourism operation is determining whether or not you are truly profitable. And if not, determining what it will take to get there.
Calculate ALL your costs
- Extra insurance
- Extra maintenance
- Extra utilities
- Extra supplies (garbage bags, toilet paper, paper towels, soap)
- Extra wear and tear on your property (driveway rock)
- Cost of goods sold in producing the items you sold
Calculate ALL your labor
- Time spent prepping
- Time spent cleaning
- Time spent with customers face-to-face, but also emails, voicemails, message
- Time spent marketing
- Time spent unwinding from stressful customers
Compare those to your sales from all agritourism activities. Are you making a profit? What about after taxes? How does that number compare with other opportunities?
What to do if your agritourism isn’t profitable (or profitable enough)
- Factor in all your costs and cut costs wherever possible
- Determine your average $ sales per customer
- Figure out how many visitors it would take to be profitable
- Determine how increasing the average $ sales/customer affects your profitability?
- Set goals to increase the number of visitors and $ sales per customer
- (Don’t forget to figure in any increased costs to increasing visitors and sales)
- Give yourself a timeline to make your agritourism profitable
Then take a step back and look at the big picture. Recognize that agritourism is hard, requires a lot of labor, has a lot of hidden costs, and is difficult to do profitably on a small scale. Do you just need time to grow larger (and don’t forget larger often equals more costs)? Or do you need to limit your agritourism offerings to more profitable ones?
Be intentional about your pricing and offerings. If you can’t sell it at the price you need to charge for it, then don’t do it.
Extra Information:
Income sources in Agritourism
- Admission fee
- Tour fee
- Sales of fresh farm product to expanded customer base
- Sales of processed farm product
- Craft / souvenir sales
- Activity fee
- Class / skill-building fee
- Tasting fee
- Facility rental
- Show fee
- Farm lodging
- Food service
Animal Welfare Act
http://nationalaglawcenter.org/overview/agritourism/
Animals used strictly for agricultural purposes are exempt from regulation under the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). However, the AWA is applicable when animals are exhibited, even if the animals are farm animals. According to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the USDA agency that administers the AWA, the exhibition of animals includes petting zoos, roadside zoos, trained animal shows, and educational displays. An agritourism operator who uses animals for exhibition purposes should be aware of the potential application of the AWA. For more information regarding animal welfare, please visit the Animal Welfare Reading Room. http://nationalaglawcenter.org/research-by-topic/animal-welfare/