Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Z. Siti-Hajar, M.S. Fadzilah, M. Muzzamir & A.H. Norhaslin
Faculty of Hotel and Tourism, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia
ABSTRACT: This article deals with how farm diversification and farm based tourism influence the
agro-tourism of farmers. Some growing loses on entrepreneurial knowledge and lack of hospitality
awareness by farmers and this issue starts to receive significant attention among the academic scholars.
Understanding the process of sharing entrepreneurial knowledge are important same goes to hospitality
awareness in ensuring the survival and continuing involvement of farmers to tourism, thus this paper
conceptually discusses the entrepreneurial knowledge and hospitality awareness and relates it into the
contextual teaching and learning of these knowledge for Malaysia scenario.
Keywords
: Agro-tourism, farm diversification, farm based tourism, entrepreneurial knowledge, contex-
tual learning
1 INTRODUCTION
disagreements on the subject because from Malay-
sians' views based on previous study at Kedah
shown most of the local residents are not getting the
benefits from agro-tourism activities. It is because
they are less involved and they unable to respond
to the new job opportunities created. This situation
shows that the authorities do not take care of pro-
moting the local population to participate and help
in decision-making programs that suit with their
live environment (Fahmi et al., 2013). Many studies
looking at the effects of tourism on the community,
however the main character in the tourism sector
itself are seldom discussed (Kunasekaran et al.,
2011). Although many studies have been done on
the perception and impact of agro-tourism, study
on the perception of farmers on agro-tourism is
less which result of lack of knowledge and theoreti-
cal framework (Kunasekaran et al., 2011).
As mention early, the study found that the major-
ity of the local community keenly to participate in
agro-tourism activities either directly or indirectly.
However, these opportunities are dependent on the
government on how to improve the level of confi-
dence of the participants to ensure the successful
agro-tourism projects besides increase their par-
ticipation (Fahmi et al., 2013). Additionally, it is
agreed by (Kunasekaran et al., 2011), that the uti-
lization of rural resources will shrink when there is
lack of involvement and inclusion from the local
community.
According to Kunasekaran et al. (2011), most
study already focused on the impacts of tourism.
1.1
Background of study
Tourism industry is the second largest contributor
that gives effect to Malaysia. In 2008 alone, Malay-
sia recorded 22.05 million tourist arrivals, and
the tourism industry contributed RM 49.6 billion
(USD 13.4 billion) of revenue (Fahmi, Hamzah,
Muhammad, Yassin, Samah, D Silva & Shaffril.,
2013). This indicates that the tourism industry
helps in enhancing local economic growth as well
as the economic multiplier effects (Jaafar, Kayat,
Tangit & Yacob, 2013).
Tourism, particularly ecotourism in developing
countries reflects richness of natural and cultural
capital, and is considered a sustainable source of
revenue for indigenous and rural communities (Jaa-
far et al., 2013). Besides, desire between rural and
urban family for relaxation and recreation increase
the market potential for agro-tourism (Gao, Bar-
bieri & Valdivia, 2013). In many areas, rural tour-
ism has been associated with agro-tourism or farm
tourism and national park and wilderness (Jaafar
et al., 2013). Agro tourism is among rural tour-
ism that allows travelers to experience the life of
a farmer as well as visit the farms (Kunasekaran,
Ramachandran & Shuib, 2011).
From the economic views, tourism industry gives
benefits like foreign-exchange inflows, employment
creation and diversification of individual income,
improve economic structure and increase standard
of living (Jaafar et al., 2013). However, there are
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