Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, School of Natural Resources, University of Missouri, Missouri 105 Anheuser-Busch Natural Res. Bldg., Columbia, MO 65211, United States; Department of Agriculture Economics and Agribusiness Management, Egerton University, Box 536, Njoro 20107, Kenya
Barbieri, C., Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, School of Natural Resources, University of Missouri, Missouri 105 Anheuser-Busch Natural Res. Bldg., Columbia, MO 65211, United States; Mshenga, P.M., Department of Agriculture Economics and Agribusiness Management, Egerton University, Box 536, Njoro 20107, Kenya
This article investigates the role of firm and owner characteristics on the gross income of farms engaged in agritourism. The findings indicate that the length of time in business, the number of employees and the farm acreage have a positive impact on performance in terms of annual gross sales of agritourism farms. Owners of farms with greater annual gross sales than the rest are male or white or their main occupation is farming. The age of the farmer has an inverse relationship on gross sales. Other characteristics including location, if it is a working farm, whether the operator had business and marketing plans, sources of start-up capital and the entrepreneur's education level did not have a significant relationship on the performance of these farms. © Journal Compilation © 2008 European Society for Rural Sociology.