Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
expected economic costs and benefits of these enterprises, and the characteristics and
attitudes of farm families to such development. Despite these problems with the farm
tourism literature and concerns with its marketing, a major impediment to developing a
more sophisticated understanding of farm tourism remains the absence of accurate
national studies of the growth and development of farm tourism. However, Dernoi (1983)
and Frater (1983) review the situation in Europe, Wrathall (1980) examines the
development of France's
gîtes ruraux,
while Oppermann (1995) considers farm tourism
in southern Germany, mapping and analysing the spatial distribution of the
accommodation base. Vogeler (1977) discussed the situation in the United States, while
Oppermann (1998b) provided a valuable baseline survey of the New Zealand scene (see
also Hall and Kearsley 2001).
A survey of England and Wales identified almost 6000 farm businesses with
accommodation. It also undertook a geographical analysis of the distribution of such
accommodation, with southwest England, Cumbria, the Welsh border counties, North
Yorkshire and the south-east coast of England popular locations for this activity. The
upland areas and south-west England were the dominant locations, with a diversity of
modes of operation (bed and breakfast, self-catering, camping and caravanning) and
niche marketing used to satisfy particular forms of tourism demand (e.g. weekend breaks,
week-long breaks and traditional two-week holidays). N.J.Evans (1992b) acknowledged
the absence of national studies of why farm businesses have pursued this activity and the
range of factors influencing their decision to undertake it. The survey also points to
inherent contradictions in the existing literature, since its findings illustrate that larger
farm businesses have also diversified into farm tourism (Ilbery 1991). While this is at
odds with Frater's (1982) research, it illustrates that family labour is widely used to
service farm-based accommodation. Such research also highlights the capital
requirements of farm tourism ventures and the role of marketing, financial advice and the
need for external agents in establishing networks to develop their business. Even so,
Maude and van Rest (1985) argue that due to the limited returns for small farmers and the
constraints of existing planning legislation, it is not a significant means of tackling the
serious problem of low farm incomes in upland areas (see also Jenkins et al. 1998). Thus
it is unlikely to improve the low-income problem of upland farmers in their Cumbria case
study since they argue that farm tourism has been wrongly regarded as the main pillar in
a diversified agricultural policy (Maude and van Rest 1985). Consequently, the continued
debate and focus on farm tourism has detracted from a more critical debate on the wider
significance of rural tourism within an economic context and the way it may be integrated
into structuration theory and other contemporary theoretically informed analyses.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF RURAL TOURISM
The environmental impact of tourism has been extensively reviewed in the tourism
literature and rural tourism has emerged as a prominent element, with the usual caveat
that tourism is destructive in different degrees of the actual qualities which attract
tourists. In a rural context, the growing pressure emerging from the development-
intensive nature of tourism, and the expansion of mass tourism, has introduced many new
pressures as 'new tourism' discovers the qualities of rural environments. In fact, the
